How do you define "welfare state"?

[bUU]

Originally Posted by Iamme73

By the 1990's the appetite to reform welfare was intense. In fact, a huge segment of the Democratic party wanted to reform welfare but of course conservatives were pushing for "welfare" reform.

This is a critical fact that right-wingers often blind themselves to, in a vain attempt to protect themselves from the understanding that their perspective is offensively one-sided. The Democratic perspective is greatly affected by the fact that it is influenced by a number of different constituencies - radical leftists, more traditional liberal Democrats, and a strong contingent of relatively conservative Democrats, the right-leaning side of the party so well regarded that we sometimes nominate and support its leaders to lead our whole party, even for positions as important as POTUS: Bill Clinton most notably. By contrast, the Republican Party makes a habit of persecuting many within their party who have an independent idea, who reflect a centrist or otherwise moderate perspective. They engage in ridiculous RINO name-calling and other petulant behaviors to seek to marginalize many of those who seek to weave reasonable prudence and civic responsibility into the right-wing perspective. If you're not sure which party's policies are best, then at the very least you can gain insight into the GOP's lack of worthiness from this aspect of its internal behavior. If Republicans so regularly treat their own like that, just imagine how they're likely to regard people that the don't like.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by Iamme73

What most conservatives don't mean by welfare state are programs that help middle class, rich upper income white Americans.

The middle class certainly is benefitting from government programs, but it sure doesn't look like the upper income folks are, regardless of race.



Sources of data in chart:
The Distribution of Tax and Spending Policies in the United States

(Note to moderators: all images appearing in this post have been linked via HTML text command in a legally permissible manner per the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Perfect 10 v. Amazon ruling, and as such do not constitute copyright violation.)

Furthermore, from the above link...

"...the combined effect of government tax and spending policies is to redistribute more than $2 trillion annually from families in the top 40 percent of the income distribution to those in the bottom 60 percent.

...Interestingly, we find that the biggest net beneficiaries of this increase in redistribution from 2000-2012 are middle-income families and working lower-income families (those in the second quintile). These were the families most targeted by economic stimulus programs and more generous tax credits. Of the $2 trillion in income that was redistributed in 2012, nearly half was paid for by families in the top 1 percent."

The top 40% are net funders of the government, while the bottom 60% are net takers. Furthermore, the top 1% alone paid for nearly half of the $2 trillion that is redistributed via government programs and services, while the top 2-40% paid the other half.