One of the few political topics on which there is near universal agreement is that the Great Society initiatives of the mid-1960s failed. Intended to help poor Americans lift themselves out of poverty, welfare programs allowed the shameless to become permanent wards of the state. Economic poverty was replaced by a more insidious behavioral poverty, as a parasitic and often predatory underclass grew larger and more entrenched. Much to the relief of productive citizens and with strong bipartisan support, President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation in 1996.
The lesson learned, after 30 years, was that no amount of money can substitute for personal responsibility. Educational opportunities mean nothing if youngsters refuse to do their homework. Job training serves no purpose for people unwilling to work. Pumping money into communities doesn’t solve the problem of teenagers having babies they cannot support or dropping out of school to sell drugs.
Yet Barack Obama’s idea of “change we can believe in” is to go backward 40 years and try again — at much higher cost — what didn’t work the first time. Compare his platform to what President Johnson proposed to Congress in 1964.
