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Fifty-seven years ago, a Democratic president who had a reputation as a moderate and who had been a senator and vice president before reaching the highest office in the land announced his administration would be waging “unconditional war on poverty in America.”
The legislation that grew out of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration had no marquee program. Instead, the war on poverty was a collection of new initiatives that have stood the test of time: Medicare; Medicaid; food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); aid for women, infants, and children (WIC); school breakfasts; Pell Grants; Head Start; and Section 8 housing vouchers, to name a few. It was a landmark passel of legislation that reshaped American life in the decades that followed.
Frustrated progressives on relief package: We ll take the win thehill.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehill.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Conservative lawmakers have been pushing for a balanced budget amendment since the mid-1990s.
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While the idea is dead on arrival in a Democratic-controlled Congress, centrist Blue Dog Democrats threw their support behind a modified version of the plan in 2019. That version would allow for deficit spending in recessions and times of emergency, reflecting the views of most economists.
Green’s amendment comes as Democrats advance a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, and are beginning discussions on a large scale infrastructure bill that could range anywhere from $1 trillion to $3 trillion.
But the GOP orthodoxy on deficits has been scrambled in recent years. Under former President Trump