http://twitter.com/#!/SenatorLeahy/status/420946439544377344

Today, Democrats in Congress are tripping over each other to remind everyone that it has been 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson “empowered America’s poor” by declaring a “War on Poverty.”

No, really. These numnuts think the ineffective War on Poverty is something to be proud of:

http://twitter.com/#!/Jim_Moran/status/420969431557099520
http://twitter.com/#!/repbobbyscott/status/420943911654555648
http://twitter.com/#!/RepCardenas/status/420948492765241345
http://twitter.com/#!/jimlangevin/status/420947289981460481
http://twitter.com/#!/ChrisVanHollen/status/420965324759240704

The Dems even hauled out one of LBJ’s daughters to pay tribute to her “conservative” daddy:

http://twitter.com/#!/NewsmanSilva/status/420952429513830400

Unfortunately, the “War on Poverty” hasn’t reduced poverty — at least not according to the Tea Party wacko statisticians at the U.S. Census Bureau. Via Forbes:

http://twitter.com/#!/Heritage/status/420903284371509248
http://twitter.com/#!/JulianGotovac/status/420946773004144640
http://twitter.com/#!/MikeBates/status/420946302130593792

Even the Census Bureau’s “new and improved” Democrat-friendly measure of poverty shows only a three percentage point decline between 1967 and 2012, according to the liberals at Mother Jones magazine. That’s what we’re supposed to be celebrating?

Here’s a little-known fact that Sen. Durbin and his Democrat colleagues don’t want you to know: The most dramatic reduction in poverty during the last 65 years occurred in the 15-year period before LBJ announced the War on Poverty.

AEI’s Charles Murray explains:

http://twitter.com/#!/charlesmurray/status/420926917626171392

In just the 15 years between 1949 and 1964, the American poverty rate had dropped by 22 percentage points. What had the government done to help? By the definition of the 1960s and thereafter, nothing. The federal government sponsored no education programs for the disadvantaged. No training programs. No jobs programs. No community action. No affirmative action. No Head Start. No welfare whatsoever for men, and only a stingy cash payment for unmarried mothers, hedged with restrictions. The federal government was missing in action in the real war against poverty — and yet somehow America cut poverty by more than half.

Poor liberals. They can’t show that LBJ’s “War on Poverty” reduced poverty. So what do they do? Why, they change the start date, of course!

http://twitter.com/#!/AriMelber/status/419877746605428736

1959. When Dwight Eisenhower was in office.

Cute trick, but it’s getting a bit old.

Read more: http://twitchy.com/2014/01/08/congressional-democrats-commemorate-lbjs-failed-war-on-poverty/