"The Democrats held the Congress for 40 something years and I'm...

[JanMichael]

...still poor, my family hasn't had insurance and the good jobs keep disapearing. So I'm supposed to think it's different this time?"

Uttered by a drunk guy at the local bar. Yes, he was blitzed, but what is the answer?

The Great Society (generally speaking) drove the Poverty rate down from the 20% or so rate to the "managable" 10-15% of today. That's "progress" I suppose.

If you're him though, in that range, why vote?

[Redleg]

1. The answer is that a Republican congress, as we have now, would

be worse for working people.

[whistle]

2. When Johnson began the Great Society the poverty rate was a...

...little higher than 20%, it was 22% back in 1960. When Johnson left office in 1969 the poverty rate had fallen to 13%.

<snip>
When President Johnson came to office 22 percent of the nation's families lived in poverty (down from 30 percent in 1950). The nation's largest programs to assist the poor--Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Social Security, and Food Stamps--provided meager benefits to only a small proportion of the country's impoverished population. AFDC paid just $388 a month (in 1980 dollars) to a family of four; Social Security payments averaged just $184 a month (in 1980 dollars); and food stamps reached just two percent of the nation's poor. Medicare and medicaid did not exist. Thirty-three million poor people competed for just 600,000 public housing units.

When Johnson left office, the official poverty rate had fallen from 22 percent in 1960 to 13 percent - which is where the poverty rate remains today. AFDC payments had risen to $577 (in 1980 dollars). Infant mortality among the poor, which had barely declined between 1950 and 1965, fell by one-third in the decade after 1965 as a result of the expansion of federal medical and nutritional programs. Before the implementation of Medicaid and Medicare, 20 percent of the poor had never been examined by a physician; when Johnson retired as president the figure had been cut to 8 percent. The proportion of families living in substandard housing--that is, housing lacking indoor plumbing - also declined steeply, from 20 percent in 1960 to 11 percent a decade later.

<link> http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_poverty.cfm

[UL_Approved]

3. What 40 years does he speak of?

Is he talking about the USA? I guess he is missing some timeline then or something.

[bowens43]

4. If he's not bright enough to understand why he should vote

then nothing you say to him is going to make a difference.

[missouri dem]

5. He's right. The Democratic party has stoped speaking for the

working class. The last election was all about the undecided voter. We should have a message of Progressive Populism.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Do We Have To Become as Bigoted as the Original Populists?

[Desperadoe]

6. The simple answer is

he's a drunk and that has more to do with his problems than the Great Society or the Democrats in Congress.

[AuntPatsy]

8. At the local bar? Ya think that might be his problem and not who

is in office?