A Conservative War on Poverty

With the irrepressible Jack Kemp now running the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there is much talk among Washington conservatives of a new “War on Poverty.” Yet other than Kemp himself, those who discuss such a war do so almost nervously.

The main reason for this uneasiness is that declaring a War on Poverty would not be like pledging to pursue such mainstream conservative objectives as cutting taxes or improving the nation’s schools. A War on Poverty would be more like the search for the Holy Grail, a campaign destined for either glory or disaster. Success would mean destruction of perhaps the central tenet of American liberalism: that only the liberal welfare state can alleviate the plight of the poor. But failure would entrench even more deeply the notion that liberalism is their only hope.

SM

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Stuart M. Butler

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With the irrepressible Jack Kemp now running the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there is much talk among Washington conservatives of a new “War on Poverty.” Yet other than Kemp himself, those who discuss such a war do so almost nervously.

The main reason for this uneasiness is that declaring a War on Poverty would not be like pledging to pursue such mainstream conservative objectives as cutting taxes or improving the nation’s schools. A War on Poverty would be more like the search for the Holy Grail, a campaign destined for either glory or disaster. Success would mean destruction of perhaps the central tenet of American liberalism: that only the liberal welfare state can alleviate the plight of the poor. But failure would entrench even more deeply the notion that liberalism is their only hope.