The 1964 Economic Report of the President stated, "the conquest of poverty is well within our power." President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a "Great Society: a society of success without squalor, beauty without barrenness, works of genius without wretchedness of poverty."

LBJ declared that, "we are not content to accept the endless growth of relief rolls or welfare rolls," and that "in the future, as in the past, this investment will return its cost many fold to our entire economy." It didn't work.

Between 1965 and 1994. welfare spending has cost the taxpayers $5.4 trillion in constant 1993 dollars. The War on Poverty has cost us 70 % more than the total price tag for defeating both Germany and Japan in World War II, after adjusting for inflation.

Many believe that Welfare has destroyed millions of families and cost a huge portion of our national wealth in the process.