Rush Limbaugh examines decades of anti-poverty programs, arguing that trillions of dollars in government spending have failed to eliminate poverty while creating long-term dependence instead of opportunity.
Speaking at CPAC, Limbaugh discusses the War on Poverty, redistribution, economic mobility, and the role of government in addressing poverty. He argues that lasting prosperity comes through education, ambition, and economic opportunity rather than expanding government assistance, while questioning whether decades of federal spending have achieved their intended goals.
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Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, have one responsibility, and that's to respect the
oath they gave to protect, defend, and follow the US Constitution.
They don't have the right to take money that's not theirs, and none of it is, from the back
pockets of producers and give it to groups like ACORN, which are going to advance the
Democrat Party.
If anybody but government were doing this, it would be a crime, and many of us think
it's bordering on that as it exists now.
President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create anger in a created atmosphere of
crisis.
He is so busy fueling the emotions of class envy that he's forgotten it's not his money
he's spending.
He has, seems to have, in fact, the money he's spending is not ours.
He is spending wealth that has yet to be created, and that is not sustainable.
It will not work.
This has been tried around the world, and every time it's been tried, it's a failed
disaster.
What's the longest war in American history?
Somebody sing the War on Poverty?
War on!
Smart group.
Yep, War on Poverty.
War on Poverty essentially started in the 30s as part of the New Deal, but it really
ramped up in the 60s with Lyndon Bain Johnson, part of the Great Society War on Poverty.
We have transferred something like $10 trillion, maybe close to $11 trillion, from producers
and earners to non-producers and earners since 1965.
And yet as I listen to the Democrat Party campaign, why America's still a soup kitchen,
the poor are still poor, and they have no hope.
And they're poor for what reason?
Well, they're poor because of us, because we don't care, because we've gotten rich by
taking from them.
That's what kids in school are taught today.
That's what others are said to the media.
You know why they're poor?
You know why they remain poor?
Because their lives have been destroyed by the never-ending government aid that's designed
to help them, but it destroys ambition.
It destroys the education they might get to learn to be self-fulfilling, and it breaks
our heart.
We lose track of numbers with all of the money.
With all the money that's been transferred, redistributed, with all the charitable giving
in this country.
Ladies and gentlemen, there ought not be any poverty, except among those who genuinely
are ill-equipped.
But most of the people in poverty in this country are equipped for far much more.
They've just been beaten down.
They've been told, don't worry, we'll take care of you.
There's nothing out there for you anyway.
You're going to be discriminated against.
And it breaks our heart to see this.
We can't have a great country and a growing economy with more and more people being told
they have a right, because of some injustice that's been done to them or some discrimination,
that they have a right to the earnings of others, and it's gotten so out of hand now.