If John Edwards wants to solve poverty, he can begin by cutting government spending, reducing bureaucratic overhead on private enterprise (starting with Sarbanes-Oxley), and introducing more free-market approaches, rather than the tired, failed top-down government programs that the Democrats have espoused since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society promised to end poverty in America.
That's Captain Ed, in rare form. I don't read the Captain any more, but I ran across that quote at Legal Fiction, where Publius makes fun of Ed's fuzzy math skills, and then writes:
Ah yes, the “failed” Great Society. Well, let’s go back to Cap’n Leibniz’s chart. In 1960, 31% of Americans — 31 — lived at 125% or below. The actual number of people was 55 million. After the mid-60s, it starts dropping sharply and is 17.6% (35 million people) by 1970, and hovers steadily there until 1980. What, I wonder, happened in the mid-60s that caused poverty to be cut so sharply. Hmm. Repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley? No, that's probably not it. I’m sure it will come to me eventually.
The point of all this snark is that Cap’n Ed’s post has literally no empirical basis. The number of people in poverty is increasing, and the Great Society programs worked. Thus, the foundation of his entire post is 100% wrong. It's fine if you don't believe that government helps reduce poverty, but it's not fine to pretend that this position has any basis in the reality-based world.
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