What's going down here?

I remember as a little kid when out of the country there'd be beggers. My Dad explained that begging was what they had to do to eat, and they'd be happy to get the dime I had to give. But the deal was, you wouldn't see beggers in the States. At least not in the fifties and sixties. Not that there weren't poor people in the U.S.

That's why President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war" on poverty in the middle of the Vietnam war. He said we could afford both "guns and butter."

Now, there's beggers at all major intersections and at interstate rest stops. Without passing judgement on those with their cardboard signs, I mean, WTF?

It's been about fifty years and billions of dollars on government aid of various kinds and evidently we are losing the war on poverty. What's the chances that government "help" is a big part of the problem?