Harrington employed the concept of a "culture of poverty" to dramatize the seriousness of the problem and to force politicians to act. Conservatives, however, made the most of the idea in subsequent debates over the nature of poverty. If poverty was rooted in the very culture of many low-income Americans, they said, then it was foolish for policy-makers to think they could do much about it.29 Liberal efforts, it followed, at best were a waste of the taxpayers' money. At worst they were counterproductive, for they would encourage "undeserving" people—"drunks," "deadbeats," "welfare mothers"—to
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