“I know that the current President doesn’t think that poverty programs are supposed to produce poverty and dependence”

I respectfully disagree. I think he knows it, and wants it.

The more ordinary Americans are mired in poverty and dependence, the better it is for the so-called liberal elites in both parties. If the multitude isn’t mired in poverty and dependence, then the liberal democrat has no one looking up at him to see how much he cares, and the liberal republican has no one to look down on and feel superior to.

Hence the Kennedys love the poor and want them to stay that way, and the Rockefellers hate the poor and want them to stay that way.