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While the GOP is making a big deal out of the 50 year anniversary of the War on Poverty, claiming that since poverty levels have increased since Lyndon Johnson declared the war against poverty in 1964, the funds and efforts spent in that endeavor have been misdirected and the war should be declared a failure. How short their memory! Too bad the war on poverty didn't have sufficient power to generate the same budget support that the military-defense industry has had during the past 50 years. If it had, our poverty levels and income equality data would be very different. After only 3 years of the war on poverty, it's budget began to be cut to allow more support for the war in Vietnam. During the Nixon years the war on poverty limped along with only partial funding, restored as much as possible by Carter, cut majorly by Reagan and never fully funded since then. So it has been a 50 year war on poverty in name only. Meanwhile, the military-defense budget has escalated repeatedly, through the funding of two major unsuccessful, unnecessary wars, Vietnam and Iraq, and was held virtually constant even in times of reduced foreign threat, e.g., no real "peace dividend" when the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. During hard economic times for the nation's economy, social spending is first on the chopping block, the military-defense budget always protected. Says a lot that is not flattering about our government's priorities, that our citizens' daily human needs are not as important as feeding the needs, win or lose, of a powerful defense establishment.
WAR MACHINE MAKES OUT LIKE BANDITS IN BUDGET DEAL
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