Throw It

Lots of people want to talk about fixing poverty these days, because the hurricane caused a lot of poor people serious harm. We'd all like to stop that sort of thing from happening again; we'd like to live in a country where everyone can get out of the way of a natural disaster.

But mature voices caution us: don't throw money at the problem. We tried that with the Great Society in the 60s and 70s, and it failed, didn't it?

Nope.

It turns out that Great Society programs were terrific when it came to alleviating poverty. The poverty rate fell from 22 percent to 13 percent between 1963 and 1970. It's still around 13 percent today, though there is some evidence lately that it's thinking about ticking up again.

So we say, let's throw money at the problem. It worked then and it could work again. Imagine what we could do if we started taxing the outrageous severance packages mediocre CEOs get when they're fired and stopped gouging working class people with the alternative minimum tax. The mature voices won't like it, but who cares what they think?