Today is Day 1 of my 32nd Year in the House of Delegates.
More importantly, it is the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty.
At an event outside the State House, I quoted from President Johnson’s State of the Union speech when he announced the war on poverty.
“Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity,” the President declared, “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”
Given the misinformation from the right about the failure of the war on poverty and its emphasis on cash payments, even I was surprised at LBJ’s reference to curing and preventing poverty.
Ron Haskins was the principal Republican staffer in the House of Representatives when the two parties reached a compromise on welfare reform in 1996.
Haskins recently wrote, “The nation should face up to two facts: poverty rates are too high, especially among children, and spending money on government means-tested programs is at best a partial solution. On the other hand, providing government support to increase the incentives and payoff for low-income jobs and redesigning the nation’s welfare programs to encourage marriage hold great promise for at last achieving the poverty reduction envisioned by President Johnson.”
Since I have worked with Ron in the past, I emailed him this week, asking what we could do in Maryland to further those objectives.
Much has been accomplished but more remains to be done, I said at today’s rally. Welfare reform in Maryland has incentivized work and benefitted families. Expansion of pre-kindergarten, building upon Head Start, will prepare the next generation for the 21st Century economy.
