Was Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty successful?
Now, people love to second-guess. We put programs in place – Head Start, Job Corps – to give folks a leg up. Did we eliminate poverty overnight? No. But did we make a dent? You bet we did. We opened up pathways, we gave millions of children a better start, we provided job training. The challenge was immense, and progress ain't always a straight line. There were headwinds, and the war in Vietnam took a lot of steam out of our sails, no doubt about it. But the idea, the *effort* to combat poverty, to build a better life for those struggling – that was a moral imperative. We made progress, and that's worth remembering.
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