A call to end poverty through more spending by the federal government is forever professed by some candidates and politicians. Maybe, they say, if just more money was appropriated and distributed this time, the results and relief for those in financial need would be conclusively different? Former President Clinton at least ran for office as a “new Democrat,” went on to declare the end of the era of big government, and signed welfare reform. Clinton was the first Democrat to win consecutive elections to the presidency since Franklin D. Roosevelt, cracking the Republican Party’s hold on the White House.

Some young voters are attracted to Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama because of his call to reshape society by empowering the federal government to spend even more on poverty programs. Young voters who are inspired by religious left icons are especially enamored with this not so new idea. Some older voters and still others who know their history are understandably hesitant to continue down that well traveled road.

Stephen Malanga reminds us once again in a recent piece in the City Journal that two parent married households are well equipped to e this trap. Malanga goes on to remind us that until the political sphere discusses the social and cultural plagues that promote poverty, “we can’t begin to take the necessary steps to reduce long term poverty.” Beginning in the 1960’s, another Democrat, the late former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of the emerging crisis of out of wedlock births and broken families and its relation to systemic poverty.