The great conceit of central planners. Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared "War on Poverty." It sounded great to me. I was taught at Princeton, "We're a rich country. All we have to do is tax the rich, and then use that money to create programs that will lift the poor out of poverty." Government created job-training programs for ... MORE
by Robert Rector. This year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s launch of the War on Poverty. In January 1964, Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty in America.” Since then, the taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s war. Adjusted for inflation, that’s three times the cost of all military wars since the ... MORE
by Randall Holcombe. Fighting the big government fight. As an apparently war-minded people, Americans (or at least, our American political leaders) have been comfortable framing parts of the domestic policy agenda as wars for decades. Two of the most prominent have been the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. Despite the ... MORE
by Peter St. Onge. From the left we often see tension between those who want to help the poor, and those who want to help the government. One recent example of this is the proposal to ban cash forwarded by Harvard’s Ken Rogoff. The gist of Rogoff’s beef with cash is that cash fuels the black market,
and it makes it harder for the ... MORE
by D.W. MacKenzie. Some Catholic clergy have, once again, denounced supporters of laissez-faire capitalism.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga claims that the free market economy
is “a new idol” which creates inequality, excludes the poor, and that
“this economy
kills.” Cardinal Maradiaga does not speak alone. He quoted Pope ... MORE
Credit is destroying what savings built. Thus far 2014 has been a fertile year for really stupid economic
ideas. But of all the half-baked doozies that have come down the pike
(the perils of “lowflation,” Thomas Piketty’s claims about capitalism
creating poverty, and President Obama’s “pay as you earn” solution to
student debt), an idea hatched ... MORE
Repeat a lie often enough and it will be believed. "Young people are exploited!" "Income mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked into poverty!" Those are samples of popular nonsense peddled today. Leftist economist Thomas Piketty's book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" has been No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks (with 400 ... MORE
Blinded by their "political" science. "The heavens reek, the waters below are foul ... we are in a crisis of survival." That's how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we've survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts. Of course, some things got better ... MORE
Do the poor need Democrats, or is it vice-versa? A major concern of progressives is their supposed interest in the fate of the poor. They purport to be the champions of the poor. But the truth is that they need the poor more than the poor need them, in a symbiotic relationship. As much as 75% of the money allocated to the ... MORE
Friedman and Hayek supported the notion. Switzerland will soon hold a nationwide referendum on granting a guaranteed and unconditional minimum monthly income of $2,800 for each Swiss adult. In America, where Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty just celebrated its 50th anniversary of failing to achieve victory, liberals jumped on the ... MORE
There is no material poverty in the U.S. Here are a few facts about people whom the Census Bureau labels as poor. Dr. Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, in their study "Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor", report that 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; nearly three-quarters ... MORE