birthmark. that s your morning dish of scrambled politics. we want to turn to first politics. they are marking the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act. also there is adam serwer. president obama spoke there yesterday. as you note in your article on msnbc.com, for many decades, lbj was a symbol of what they wanted to leave behind. they wanted to get away from the legacy of lyndon johnson, the economic decline and the racial unrest that followed the great society programs were really a toold by republicans to really discredit liberalism and i think the clinton campaign was seen as a repudiation of that.
with the legacy of your mother and father. your father was the architect of these great society programs. we re trying to preserve this right now against these budget cuts and against this very backwards thinking with regard to issues of income inequality and poverty reduction. barbara, neera, how do you think we bring, you know, bring this down the line so to speak? get some movement on this? we have a moment here. there s a lot going on. a lot of discussion. seems to be some how do we take it across the goal line, as they say? i think what s very interesting about this moment is actually how you re seeing a bipartisan interest in the conversation. obviously there are different views about solutions, but the fact that rising inequality is becoming something that even republicans are talking about i think is really a demonstration of what we ve seen in the shriver report and the poll, itself, which is there s bipartisan support for issues like paid leave, childcare, because peo
congressional out of poverty caucus. and neera tanden. do you think that the conversation, the policy conversation in washington is too backwards focused in terms of fighting off these cuts and too narrow in terms of how we re thinking about solutions? well, chris, we have to play offense and defense. last year, we celebrated 50 years of the war on poverty. we had lynda johnson-robb and came and talked about how head-start, job corps, food stamps, medicaid, how all these great initiatives during her father and mother s time were still appropriate today. thank you, maria, for continuing with the legacy of your mother and father. your father was the architect of these great society programs. we re trying to preserve this right now against these budget cuts and against this very backwards thinking with regard
great society programs of the 1960s were misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers money. in fact, from 1963 when lyndon johnson took office until 1970, as the impact of his great society programs were felt, the portion of americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2% to 12.6%. the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in the 20th century. the current poverty rate in america in the wake of the financial crisis and recession is 15%, thanks in part, it s been held down thanks in part to programs like food stamps. also enacted by lyndon johnson. today in a speech at the capitol, marco rubio announced his anti-poverty program. what i am proposing today is the most fundamental change to how the federal government fights poverty and encourages upward mobility since president
in the washington monthly in 1999, if there is a prize for the political scam of the 20th century, it should go to the conservatives for propagating as conventional wisdom that the great society programs of the 1960s were misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers money. in fact, from 1963 when lyndon johnson took office until 1970, as the impact of his great society programs were felt, the portion of americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2% to 12.6%. the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in the 20th semplgry. the current poverty rate in america in the wake of the financial crisis and recession is 15%, thanks in part, it s been held down thanks in part to programs like food stamps. also enacted by lyndon johnson. today in a speech at the capitol, marco rubio announced his anti-poverty program.