Thirty-two years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a War on Poverty. In the past several months, We the People seem to have declared that war unwinnable, the Republicans in the House seem to have declared it unnecessary, and the Democrats just say, "Well, I declare."
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It's a shame. A noble idea - that the time had come when Americans as a community could whip the poverty that had always been with us - got lost in translation. Because some programs really didn't work, because others were not well managed and, as much as anything, because a majority of Americans just got tired of paying for it, the underlying idea itself is in danger. Poverty wins by default.