单选题：A) In support of government action to ease the plight of the

A) In support of government action to ease the plight of the poor, President Obamacommemorated the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty with his own call for newpolicies to address the continued struggles of tens of millions of Americans.
B) In his official statement, Obama remarked that, "In the richest nation on earth, far toomany children are still born into poverty, far too few have a fair shot to escape it, andAmericans of all races and backgrounds experience wages and incomes that aren'trising... That does not mean...abandoning the War on Poverty. In fact, if we hadn'tdeclared 'unconditional war on poverty in America,' millions more Americans wouldbe living in poverty today. Instead, it means we must redouble our efforts to makesure our economy works for every working American."
C) It would seem hard to argue with such sentiments, yet some have done so. Fox Newspublished a piece saying "despite trillions spent, poverty won". Many others react byshaking their heads sadly, acknowledging the noble effort and concluding that it wasan unfortunate failure. The implication is clear: government spent a mint and did notend poverty, and now Obama is calling for more of the same.
D. This raises two crucial questions: did the first "war" really fail? And what should wedo today?
E.As for the first, when Lyndon Johnson called for an end to poverty on January 8,1964, he continued the tradition of the New Deal and decades of American policydesigned to provide all Americans with basic standards of living--housing, education,healthcare and jobs. Americans believed that an activist government could achievethose goals, hence the trillions of doltars directed at the War on Poverty.
F. Those trillions have over time reduced the official "poverty rate" from 19 percent to15 percent. Many have concluded that such a minor shift wasn't worth the massiveexpense. Johnson's legacy was destroyed by the chaos unleashed by opposition tothe Vietnam War and by the dilemma of the 1970s, and the Reagan revolution ofthe 1980s was predicated in part on a conviction that the government's attempt toalleviate the plight of the poor was not only social engineering, but badly-done socialengineering.
G.Yet poverty today is of a different order than poverty 50 or I00 years ago. Duringthe Great Depression, millions of Americans were still without electricity orrunning water. By the 1960s that had changed, but many people still lacked basichealthcare, and the elderly were often at the mercy of their families. Today, there isstill widespread poverty as defined by official income statistics, but the conditions ofpoverty are materially different.
H.In part, that is because of the safety net we have since created. Many conservativesbelieve that we were better off in a world where private charity groups and religiousorganizations provided assistance, rather than government programs such as foodstamps, welfare, unemployment benefits, social security and disability payments. Butwhile that world did place much greater stock in self-reliance, it also left far morepeople at a huge disadvantage, struggling for life's basic necessities. You could--and some do--argue that such a world produced heartier souls more able to cope withlife's vicissitudes (变迁) . You could also argue--and should--that such a worldwas harsh and destructive to many in ways that humans for centuries have strived toameliorate (改善 ) .
I.Today we have a massive social safety net, thanks to both the New Deal and thesubstantial expansion of federal and state programs beginning in the 1960s. Theseprograms soon included housing as well. Many have seen more waste than not, andhousing programs in particular did not fare well, as the scarred urban landscape ofhousing projects demonstrates.
J.But that safety net--much of which is not well-captured in the per capita incomestatistics that are used to assess the poverty rate--did create a set of expectationsabout the minimum level of necessities that all Americans deserve. That minimum--consisting of adequate shelter, food, heat and air conditioning, public education, andaccess to healthcare for the elderly--is a reality today.
K.The real criticism, however, and the area we should focus on in the years ahead, isthat because Americans are divided about this safety net, we accomplish two things,neither of which are the best. We spend trillions on programs designed to providesome level of basic security, and yet these programs remain controversial. Significantopposition to these programs and the constant threat that they could be cut means thatinstead of providing security, they create insecurity, and because of that opposition, it becomes almost impossible to discuss how they could be improved, rather thanmaintained or terminated.
L. The result is something of a worst of all possible worlds: We maintain a vast safety net while pretending that we do not, and many of us act as if safety nets are at best ineffective and at worst immoral. The net result is that as a society, we find ourselves unable to enact needed reforms.
M. The answer, then, is to recognize that in securing many basic necessities, the War on Poverty succeeded, either in actually ensuring that those necessities exist, or in establishing that having them is a fundamental right. Even the most malicious opponents to social safety net programs accept that right, which would not have been the case well into the 20th century. The programs may not have altered the poverty rate, but in part that's because we have constantly reset and raised the bar about what we consider to be the most basic resources that every American deserves. Our "enough" today is considerably greater than it was fifty years ago.
N.The next solutions to the challenges of today's poverty, therefore, are not better publichousing and Medicaid. We do not need the same approach that various administrationshave been advocating for the past 50 years. We need instead a consensus about whatwe believe are the next level of basic material rights of every citizen--beyond food,clothing and shelter. Many of those--such as self-esteem, the tools to build careers,the ability to navigate a world defined by information rather than manufacturing---arewithin the ability of government to provide.
O.State and local governments have been laboratories of new initiatives--from workand training programs, to partnerships between local businesses and communitycolleges, to food banks. Thankfully, such initiatives at all levels of governmentsrequire less money than more traditional social services. They also demand moreflexibility. Government programs defined not by ideology but by flexibility and theability to help private and local institutions act--not by giving them grants as the Waron Poverty did, but via tax incentives that help run programs--that would be welcomeinnovation, and the best way to continue the legacy of the War on Poverty. And withthe federal government unlikely to spend more in today's climate, it may also be theonly way.
We should be thankful that such new policies at all levels of governments need fewerfunds than traditional social services.