Very Good Figs

"Between 1965 and 1995 we spent more than $5 million on Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, while welfare rolls, chronic unemployment, and illegitimacy rates all steadily grew. Ronald Reagan quipped that poverty had won the war. Even Democrats admitted it. As a presidential candidate in 1992, Bill Clinton pledged to 'end welfare as we know it.' In 1998 he did just that by signing a Republican reform that put a five-year limit on cash assistance and imposed work requirements on recipients. Since then, welfare rolls have shrunk by more than 60 percent, the number of poor children has fallen by 1.4 million, and illegitimacy rates have stopped growing. Black-child poverty is at its lowest level in history. None of this would have happened without the courage and commitment of congressional Republicans--especially Rick Santorum, Jim Talent, and Clay Show--who overcame a powerful coalition of liberal advocacy groups, academics, bureaucrats, media, and church leaders. Their conservative common sense vanquished liberal "compassion" --and the poor are richer for it."

The above is from the September 11 issue of National Review, page 6. See National Review Online.

Some sober reality is that the decline in the number of children affected might also be because of the blight of abortion. We must not congratulate ourselves on improving the life of our children if that is made possible by the murder of some of them. But it was a good thing to jettison the "War on Poverty."

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