Jan. 13, 2014-The 50th
anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson's "War on Poverty"
speech (January 8, 1964) has triggered a wave of events and
speeches. President Barack Obama delivered a major speech on
social mobility on Dec. 4, 2013, stating that it is "the defining
challenge of our time" [transcript].
Last
week
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) delivered a major speech on
combatting poverty in which he roundly rejected the notion that
"government spending is the central
answer to healing the wounds of poverty." "We have the single
greatest
engine of upward mobility in human history at our disposal: the
American free enterprise system," Rubio stated in his prepared speech [prepared remarks].
The
Brookings
Institution joined the field, holding
a day-long "Social Mobility Summit," bookended by speeches by Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-WI). As one would expect, the two legislators presented
significantly different approaches to the subject.
|