Meet the poverty liars: GOP peddles more garbage in war on the poor

[DonViejo]

Struggling to project “compassion,” Republicans revive Reagan’s destructive myths about how to help the poor

JOAN WALSH

As we observe the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson declaring the “War on Poverty” this week, it’s worth remembering the way Ronald Reagan wrote its history, and its epitaph, with a soothing nine-word bromide: “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.”

It’s worth remembering, because as Republicans scramble to appear as though they care about the poor, circulating memos teaching how to seem “compassionate” and digging “anti-poverty plans” out of dusty file folders from the 1980s, all they’re doing is updating Reagan for the 21st century. And Reagan was dead wrong the first time around.

It’s almost impossible to exaggerate the effect of Reagan’s War on Poverty lies, especially as they’re warmed over by Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan as they dream about 2016. Even though Reagan began his Republican political career as a race-baiter and anti-welfare demagogue, by the 1980 campaign and his presidency, he’d softened some. He didn’t rail as much against “welfare queens” and “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. Now he projected concern for the poor: he wanted to help them, and poverty programs hurt them.

Of course, we can’t forget the racial component of Reagan’s anti-welfare animus. Racial division is what doomed Johnson’s War on Poverty, almost as soon as it began. I was riveted by Slate’s feature on the actual woman behind Reagan’s race-baiting “welfare queen” stereotype. Reagan didn’t invent her, as many people thought over the years; his anecdote was based on Linda Taylor, a Chicago woman who did in fact use multiple identities to commit welfare fraud.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/01/08/meet_the_poverty_liars_gop_peddles_more_garbage_in_war_on_the_poor/