war on poverty
The war on poverty, the unofficial name of the legislation brought into effect by president Lyndon B. Johnson led to the passing of multiple acts to administer federal funds at programs to target poverty. 50 years later, on January 24th, 2014 The Wall Street Journal published two opposing arguments by Cory Booker and Paul Ryan on how the program worked out and what should be done with the idea today. Booker’s “Building on the Success of the War on Poverty” takes a positive stance with the idea of continuation while Ryan’s “A New Direction in the War on Poverty” suggest straying away from the old ideas. Booker’s arguments rely heavily on the idea of: why mess with something that works? Throughout his article multiple examples of programs that worked in the past are given and the author then ties them back into today’s economic situation and why the old plan should be expanded on. Booker also uses quite a bit of pathos throughout his argument by throwing in American youth, on multiple occasions he states how the American people are the country’s greatest asset heavily focusing on children and families for the majority of the second half of the article. The image of families being torn apart by corrupt justice systems is not a pleasant one, which is exactly why it does very well in supporting the idea of more government involvement in some aspects of American life. Expansion and empowerment of the people is the heart of the argument. Moving to Ryan’s article, which starts with a jab at the big guys in Washington, His example of a high school taking a different approach to violence prevention and succeeding puts the article on a path to saying that’s what needs to be done with America, change. Not expansion. Ryan’s article focuses heavily on what’s being done wrong, how Washington has been treating the poor and lack of coordination between programs against poverty just makes things messier. The idea of empowerment, just like in Booker’s argument is very present,