[Rhodes22-list] Polotics: Welfare

[Michael Meltzer]

BTW bill, I suspect the higher number are right, taking the lower number and dividing by people would not level enough money, the 
system is far from 100% efficient.

MJM


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Meltzer" <mjm at michaelmeltzer.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Polotics: Welfare


> like is said, google "welfare spending us"
>
> second hit:
> http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/Test030701b.cfm
>
> now this was about means testing, I was just looking at the charts for spending.
> saw the number is a few places.
>
> MJM
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bill Effros" <bill at effros.com>
> To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 10:32 PM
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Polotics: Welfare
>
>
> 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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