A lot has been written and said about the War on Poverty.  50 years ago, President Johnson announced the war.  Poverty is not something that judges typically write about, but poverty drives so much of what courts deal with.

This commentary in MinnPost is my contribution to the debate about poverty.  The commentary begins:

President Johnson’s War on Poverty was not the first political war, and it won’t be the last. The War on Poverty is part of a litany of metaphors about war. We have had the War on Cancer, War on Drugs, War on Gangs, War on Women. We have had real wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and President George W. Bush’s War on Terror. If you are a regular watcher of Fox News or “The Daily Show,” our most recent war is the War on Christmas.

President Lyndon B. Johnson set a broad agenda when he said on Jan. 8, 1964, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional War on Poverty in America. … It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.” Less than a year later the key elements in the War on Poverty were created; they included Head Start, Job Corps, Vista, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents, Community Action.