I read Cal Thomas’ recent column, “America’s longest war didn’t address poverty,” (March 15). He starts out ranting about how the War on Poverty, which he calls "America's longest war," is a total failure. Then look at the evidence that he marshals to support this assertion, which he concludes with this paragraph:

"Today’s 'poor,' they note, are much better off than the poor in the mid-1960s. A household receiving $50,000 in welfare benefits today is still considered poor, but only if its pre-welfare income falls below the poverty line. Rector and Sheffield note that among contemporary poor, 80 percent have air conditioning, two-thirds have cable or satellite TV, half own a personal computer and 43 percent can access the internet. In 1964, they might have been called middle class."

In other words, the War on Poverty has lifted most of America's poor from abject misery almost to the lower edge of the middle class. Far fewer people are living in hopeless suffering and destitution without any comfort in their lives. That's what Thomas calls a "failure." Sounds like a brilliant success to me. But Thomas isn't happy, because in his moral equation the poor should be living in misery.

Craig Edwards

Mystic