The war on poverty has been a failure under any definition. The war on poverty was meant to basically redistribute wealth from the wealthy and give it to the poor. This has not worked for many reasons. The main reason this has failed is the poor simply became dependent on the state for their well-being. The act was meant to improve the livelihood of the inner city poor. This group is now in just as bad, if not worse shape as they were in the 60's. The major difference is that they no longer rely on their own personal skills for their salary, but depend on taxpayers (future taxpayers at that because we borrow money from China to give to them).
The war on poverty will always fail because we pay people to do it. We pay people to fail. If the poor get a job, they lose the benefits currently gives them. This disincentivizes success. I am not saying life is great on welfare. It is undoubtedly a tough life. That being said, life working for a low wage is also not easy. The major difference is that if you never take that first difficult step of working at the bottom, you cannot get the promotions making your life easier.
While Huffpo and other organizations take aim at the Afghanistan war (and this post should be seen as supporting or not supporting the Afghanistan war) they are missing a larger, and more expensive war that we are doomed to fail because we are incentivizing the opposite behavior we are seeking.
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