[Rhodes22-list] Polotics: Welfare

[Bill Effros]

Michael,

What are you talking about?  I know you as a person who gets his facts straight, and if I understand you, you think the US is spending $450 billion a year on what we commonly call "welfare".  Not corporate welfare subsidies, not farm subsidies, not social security, not Medicare, not unemployment insurance... but non-working poor people welfare----turning poor people into rich people while everyone else is working?

That's not what those charts say.  They have lumped in Medicare and Social Security and Farm subsidies and everything else that everyone takes advantage of in one way or another -- Federal Highway Assistance programs; Coast Guard Boater Education--and called it all "welfare".  

You really know better.  And you know enough to look at somebody's email address.  Eric works for the Census bureau! (although I note approvingly that he has written this missive on his own time.)

What is truly disturbing is that I wonder if maybe you don't know better.  I'm afraid you really believe we are spending more on "welfare" for poor people than we spend on defense for everyone.  The notion is so far off, I'm left speechless--something that doesn't happen very often.

Roughly 50% of the budget goes to the military--unless you lump the VA hospitals and veterans benefits and pensions into the "welfare" category.  (Including roughly 3% added on for Iraq and Afghanistan--not included in the regular budgeting process.)  Roughly 25% goes into Medicare and Social Security, unless you lump them into the "welfare" category also.  Interest on the debt is 8% of the budget--and climbing fast!  Paying the border patrol, the FBI, Congresspeople etc. is another 13%.  What does that leave?  4% for everything else?

You can slice the pie a little differently, but not very differently.  The long and the short of it is there's not that much left for everything else, and even if you cut it all out, it wouldn't begin to solve the deficit problem.

Or, to quote without further comment:

"No one should expect significant deficit
reduction as a result of austere non-defense
discretionary spending limits. The numbers
simply do not add up."

Representative C. W. Young, Florida (R)
House Appropriations Committee, Chairman
February 3, 2004

Bill Effros



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Michael Meltzer 
To: The Rhodes 22 mail list 
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] What do you do with monsters?


That number sound low, I always heard more than the DOD budget, A quick search of google "welfare spending us" showed 435 to 450 
billion(for 2000), which sounds more like it. But here the kicker :-) I think it the welfare workers causing the problem. 450 
billion divided but 25 million on welfare = 17,400, if we just cut out the middle man(the workers) and send people a check(the 
republic way :-) and we would cure welfare and poverty in one year.

MJM

PS. ducking and running for cover.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <eric.charles.newburger at census.gov>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] What do you do with monsters?


>
> So many of you have given thoughtful replies that I felt I should offer my
> own in support.  Besides, work's over for the day and now I have a few
> minutes....
>
> "Remember, this so called deficit
> could be eliminated in a couple years if we reduced
> walfare programs."
>
>      This is just wrong.  U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, in its
> annual report to congress, "Indicators of Welfare Dependance, 2003"
> reported that the Federal Government and 50 states, combined, spent only
> about $14.2 billion in 2000 on AFDC and TANF, the programs commonly
> referred to as welfare.  Compare that with Bush's one year deficit of $450
> billion or so.
>      Most of the social spending we do in this country is on social
> security payments, which are not entitlements at all, but rather, a
> government run retirement and, to a lessor extent, life insurance program.
> They go to everyone, and so they cost a lot.  We pay for it, too, with our
> SSA withholdings.
>      Welfare only goes to poor people, and there are relatively few of
> them in our society (though there are more now than before Bush took
> office--see the Census Bureau's last three Income and Poverty Reports).
> HHS also reports that only about 3% of Americans are 'dependent' upon
> welfare (that is, get half or more of their income from these programs).
> So, with so few mouths to feed, as it were, the bill is pretty small
> compared to other things.
>      By the way, those Clinton era figures for welfare are only about a
> third of what the Reagan era welfare bills were in constant dollars.
> Welfare reform in '96 really reduced the figures.  However, even at the $28
> to $29 billion annual level that typified the Reagan era, welfare would not
> then, nor will it now, ever begin to pay off Bush's tax cuts.
>
>
> "So called republican pork allow companies to produce
> goods or services with a higher profit margin.  The
> higher the profit margin, the more workers the
> companies will need to hire to produce more of the
> goods & services to maintain its market share."
>      This reasoning stems from what some economists call 'Supply Side'
> economics, or 'trickle down' economics, and what George Bush Sr. referred
> to as 'Voodoo economics' when he ran against Reagan.  It's the notion that
> giving money to poor people (welfare) is bad, but giving money to business
> owners is good, because it stimulates jobs.
>      The thing is, the economic stimulus from tax cuts for the rich, and
> sweetheart deals for businesses, only generate about 1/10th the growth that
> the supply side economists claim for them.  We've had a good 20 years to
> look at this in action.  It doesn't work the way proponents say.  You get a
> little bump, but most of that money goes into the pockets of the rich.
> That is, the rich accumulate wealth, and invest only a portion of it.  You
> see poor people getting poorer and rich people getting richer, which is of
> course exactly what the numbers show for the past three years (see those
> Census reports on poverty and income--they are quite clear).
>      More fundamentally, most business 'pork' subverts the competitive
> process so vital to our system--the contract goes to the business with the
> best connections, rather than the best product or service.  Quality erodes
> while prices rise, good companies fail, good people go down with them. It's
> ugly, and it's the reason that societies in which corruption becomes the
> norm don't do so well in the long run.
>
> Eric Newburger
>
>
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