Friendly Fire

by Gordon Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, October 14, 2010

Among the many horrors and tragedies of war, the most horrific and most tragic consequences of battle are the casualties created by misplaced “friendly fire”. The idea that artillery designed for and aimed toward the enemy could actually strengthen the foe’s position by injuring or killing those “on your side of the line” is hard to comprehend.

Even more difficult to comprehend, however, is the idea that the commanders would see the casualties and yet make no attempt to redirect the fire or move the victims from sure harm. While this would certainly call for a court martial of those commanders in a conventional war, in an ideological war, it seems the commanders receive high praise and advancement in their careers.

The ideological war of which I speak and the Friendly Fire to which I refer is the War on Poverty and the Federal Welfare System.
This War on Poverty was declared during the Lyndon Johnson administration in the mid-60’s as the key component of his quest for a Great Society, in which social programs and government bureaucracies would create a utopia with a more equitable distribution of this nation’s great wealth. It has been over 46 years and over $15 trillion since Johnson made his declaration of war and vowed he “would not rest until the war was won”.

Can we rest now? Has the war been won? I think not.

The number of American citizens living in poverty when the first battle cry was issued in 1964 was estimated to be around 39 million, today – despite trillions of taxpayer dollars and conservative as well as liberal ideas for solutions to the problem – we still have over 39 million citizens living below the poverty line.

In fact, it was recently brought to my attention, via a forwarded email from our editor, Karen Frick, that the disparity between the wealthy in our society and the poorest among us still exists and tragic situations are faced daily by those who seem to have “fallen through the cracks” in the many social programs our government has instituted as part of this war.

What then should we do? Should we follow the plan set forth by President Obama who has proposed federal and state spending within the welfare system during Fiscal Year 2010 to reach $888 billion – that is more than Bush spent on the Iraq War in his whole term of office ($622 billion) – and that is only the beginning. Obama has plans to continue the increased spending for the next decade. According to his budget projections, total federal and state matching funding for welfare recipients will exceed $10.3 trillion. That amounts to $250,000/person or $1,000,000/family of four!

I propose that spending more money, establishing more social programs and creating government bureaucracies are not the solutions to poverty. I believe it is time to re-calibrate our weapons and adjust our aim.

Studies have proven that since the War on Poverty began, there has been a steady and precipitous decline in the rate of marriage and stable two-parent families within the black community. According to U.S. Census statistics, the number of children born to unwed mothers within the African-American population was only slightly higher than those of the rest of the population (14% for blacks compared to 3% for whites). However, a sharp curve developed after the War on Poverty was declared and government programs initiated a marriage penalty for those who were placed on the welfare rolls. The current percentage of children born into homes without a father within the black population now exceeds 73%!

Studies have also proved that – with controls adjusted for all other components – that marriage and stable families are associated with lower rates of poverty. (Calculated from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2006–2008. See Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey at http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/)

I believe the intent behind the War on Poverty was noble in its inception and I do recognize that standards of living have improved for the poorest among us (just ask AT&T, Verizon and Sprint how many cell phone customers pay their accounts with taxpayer money, or survey the number of cable subscribers and high-speed Internet users within the poorest communities), but I am not sure the methods currently in use serve to reduce the overall causes of poverty.

We can best serve the poverty stricken by heeding the advice of Benjamin Franklin who said (I am paraphrasing here) that “We do not help the poor by making them comfortable in their poverty, we help them most by driving them out of it”, and that is done by making them uncomfortable! Or to follow the advice of Patrick Moynihan, quoted recently in a George Will column, who said (again paraphrasing) “The creating of bureaucracies to serve the poor is like feeding the sparrows by feeding the horses” (I’ll let you follow the reasoning there).

In conclusion, we do have an obligation to help our fellow man. We must do what we can to help “the least of these” but we cannot do it by merely spending money (redistribution of wealth). We must address the causes of poverty. For example, we must educate our youth about the consequences of poor choices. The surest preventive to poverty is to stay in school, don’t have babies before you’re married, get a job and show up! Otherwise we will continue to see more casualties from our “friendly fire”.