Reply #25

The thing is that poverty as it was circa 1960 is unthinkable by contemporary American standards.

We eliminated that part of the poverty spectrum that was addressable through simple measures. It didn't end poverty, which might require a fundamental reshaping of our society. I did, however, nearly eliminate things like people literally starving to death, rickets being commonplace in some areas, elderly people who had not had a real meal in a decade.

It is easy and cheap to give a starving person a meal. Much harder and more costly to give them an education.

As to whether any of that is a proper analogy to Obama, in 2013, that's a whole 'nother thing. I don't know that 1960s poverty programs, appropriate to their time, would be the best approach today.