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It was 1964 and I was a liberal confident that society could be greatly improved by large infusions of money. With all the talk currently being bruited about the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty, I am reminded that for a year, between 1964 and 1965, I was the director of the antipoverty program of Pulaski County, Ark., which included Little Rock, the adjoining city of North Little Rock and the surrounding rural area. I was then 27 years old, appropriately left-wing, and confident that society could be greatly improved with the help of large infusions of money and...

When Lyndon Baines Johnson announced his War on Poverty in 1964, I wonder if he expected we’d still be waging it 50 years later? We’ve now spent over $20 trillion on the War on Poverty, and what have we got to show for it? A welfare system that has been institutionalized into one of the country’s main industries, the creation of a new, permanent, underclass of non-contributing members of society, and the destruction of the black family: in short, a system that does more to perpetuate the existence of poverty than eliminate it. You could call it collateral damage. By...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Today it's the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty. Did you know that? So today we're celebrating 50 years of defeat in the War on Poverty. But it's a valiant effort that we continue to make, 50 years of defeat in the War on Poverty. Robert Rector has rerun the numbers. The amount of money that we have spent in income redistribution is stunning. I have that number. I have to make my own number here. Take a break. We'll be back and continue in mere moments. Don't go away. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Robert Rector, Heritage...

WASHINGTON — To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate. But looked at a different way, the federal government has succeeded in preventing the poverty rate from climbing far higher. There is broad consensus that the social welfare programs created since the New Deal have hugely improved living conditions for low-income Americans. At the same time, in recent decades,...

Here's my response to Commander Zer0's verbal assault on reason that took place last night. I realize that our Dear Leader's plans to provide al-Qaeda air cover may not materialize, but keep this in mind: We have a failing dictator who's willing to start world War III to distract the country from his varied scandals and Zimbabwe-like economy. Anything is still possible with this pile of human debris in the White House. Without further ado: *** For the last couple of days, we've been exposed to an endless stream of war propaganda in support of Chairman Obama's Syrian adventure. Without...

(Cartoon by Glenn Foden) Where do food stamps come from? They come from taxpayers—certainly not from family farms. Yet the “farm” bill, a recurring subsidy-fest in Congress, is actually 80 percent food stamps and other government nutrition programs. The food stamps sweeten the farm deal for lawmakers, who admit that the combination works for their political purposes. As Heritage experts Daren Bakst and Diane Katz explain: The food stamp portion creates a reason for urban representatives to support farm subsidies, and for farm-state lawmakers to support food stamps. Talk of de-politicizing agriculture programs and welfare policy is met with...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending $4 million to increase the use of food stamps at farmers markets, claiming it is beneficial to the economy. As a record one-out-of-five households are on the benefit, the USDA says allowing food stamp use at farmers markets is a “win-win-win situation.” … The $4-million outreach is part of a two-year project that expires Sept. 20, 2013. With the funds, farmers markets can purchase equipment to accept EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards and wireless access in order to operate the equipment. Already, there are 2,091 farmers markets that accept food stamps, as...

In 2010... the estimated rate of new HIV infections for black women (38.1/100,000 population) was 20 times as high as the rate for white women...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker made a statement on HBO's Real Time Friday that should please gun rights advocates across the fruited plain. Despite being for stronger gun laws, Booker said, "Legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places" … CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D-N.J.): To me, the data should drive our decision making. So I know, I’m not afraid of people having guns who are law abiding citizens. In the analysis of gun murders and shootings in my city, I could only find one in the entire time I’ve been mayor...The guns that are...

One of the tragic legacies of the Great Society is the violence inflicted upon the family as an institution. Through a series actions, calculated or not, the family has been devalued as the bedrock of civil society and replaced with the government acting in loco parentis for not only the children it comes into contact with but also for the parents. While we are all familiar with the incentives provided by the government to discourage marriage by women living in poverty through the provision of various allowances and services so long as they are unemployed and unmarried and have...

Unless you’re a member of the lucky sperm club or have just been unusually fortunate you’re entire life, you, like most of us, have experienced financial hardship and distress at some point. Some of this country’s greatest entrepreneurs have struggled mightily at different periods during their process to succeed. Walt Disney, one of the world’s most legendary icons, for example, was forced into bankruptcy and destitution before his perseverance and hard work finally paid off and he became “Walt Disney.” More times than not in this life failure and hardship dwell on the road to success, and at some point...

In September 2010, the Associated Press prepared an advance report on the expected surge in the Census Bureau's official poverty rate, which rose from 13.2% to a 15-year high of 14.3%. Their stated preoccupation was not with the associated pain, but with "the unfortunate timing for Obama and his party just seven weeks before important elections when Congress is at stake." Well, this year's official poverty rate will very likely be the highest seen since the mid-1960s, and there's a presidential election coming up. What's the AP, aka the Administration's Press, to do? It looks like the strategy is to get...

I am curious, how were race relations before LBJ's great society? Would you have walked, relatively safe, down the streets of Harlem back in 1960?

I delivered the faculty graduation address last weekend at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. It’s one of the nation’s best and the reason is its emphasis on rigorous data analysis. Any public policy wonk worth her salt must be focused on data in order to replicate policy successes.

When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing. While the unemployment rate had fallen from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, 342,000 workers had stopped looking for work. They had just dropped out of the labor market. Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in the labor force, the lowest level since December 1981. During the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton years, participation in the labor force rose steadily to a record 67 percent. The plunge since has been almost uninterrupted. Here is a major cause...

(VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH BOB TUR AT THE LINK) Bob Tur, the L.A. Riots’ Eye in the Sky, on Reginald Denny & More by Matthew DeLuca Apr 26, 2012 9:00 PM EDT Bob Tur invented the news helicopter—and used it to film the beating of Reginald Denny on live TV. He tells Matt DeLuca about his strange souvenir, his wife's warning, and more. Well before the Los Angeles riots broke out on April 29, 1992, Bob Tur knew what was missing from television news: images. Footage of what was happening as it was happening. Not shot from a news van or...

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I'll fix it." Thus did Mitt Romney supposedly commit the gaffe of the month -- for we are not to speak of the poor without unctuous empathy. Yet, as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation reports in "Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor," Mitt was more right about America's magnanimity than those who bewail her alleged indifference. First, who are the poor? To qualify, a family of four in 2010 needed to earn less than $22,314. Some...

I met my neighbor Rus Walton in 1974 before a financial disaster moved us from our lovely country home near Sacramento. We also enjoyed some of Governor Ronald Reagan’s staff. Rus gave me a copy of his new book, “One Nation Under God.” Rus ran The Plymouth Rock Foundation for many years and was a noted Christian speaker and prolific writer. People of faith have understood the principle of subsidiarity for a long, long time. It just means taking personal responsibility. When needed, the hierarchy of assistance offered or given begins with the family; then the community; the state; the...

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering SoresJanuary 1, 2012 Once upon a time, the people of the United States constructed beautiful, shiny cities from coast to coast that were the envy of the entire globe. We had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen and life was quite good in America. But now all of our prosperity is coming crashing down and many of our formerly great cities are turning into open, festering sores. Unfortunately, we are drowning in so much debt that we can barely even slow down...

A shocking one in four students at a Bronx high school slated for closure is a teen parent or pregnant, The Post has learned. That startling statistic is buried in thousands of pages of documents the city Department of Education submitted to the state earlier this year when it initially sought funds to fix the long-struggling Grace Dodge HS in Belmont. It has since proposed shuttering the school — with, critics charge, no regard to the parenting teens.