California is the top welfare state: 33% of welfare recipients live in CA (interview, ethics)

[kevinm]

Originally Posted by Taratova

It is all that liberal legislation that protects the illegals and brings more of them there . California will implode eventually with all those handouts.

President Romney better add required austerity measures for the State of California to get federal aid as one of his top priorities in 2013.

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by malamute

Welfare is huge business. There are places where Medicaid and food stamps and WIC plus federal housing assistance are making the economy. That's big money pouring in.

California would be in a bad way if the big federal dollars stopped pouring in to support it's large and growing welfare class.

and isn't that the point that conservatives are trying to make-that all this government borrowing and spending will not be able to continue?

the government cannot keep borrowing 1.2 trillion dollars regularly, as the math will not work, and all the interest payments keep pulling money away from any productive sector growth or stability. (....which then creates more demand in welfare/social service needs-a really bad cycle-as california is finding out).

sometimes i think that obama and congress are actually trying to tank the system so that none of the government benefits will have to be honored.

does anyone think that all this borrowing is even sustainable?

i see they are going to delay anything on the next 1.2 trillion dollars obama wants until after their vacations are over. really?

it's a shame because when you think about california it is a beautiful sunny state, and citizens should be flocking there-yet the opposite is happening as citizens flee the state. That should tell them something.

[SyraBrian]

So California's rate is 2.5 times the national average?

[malamute]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

and isn't that the point that conservatives are trying to make-that all this government borrowing and spending will not be able to continue?

the government cannot keep borrowing 1.2 trillion dollars regularly, as the math will not work, and all the interest payments keep pulling money away from any productive sector growth or stability. (....which then creates more demand in welfare/social service needs-a really bad cycle-as california is finding out).

sometimes i think that obama and congress are actually trying to tank the system so that none of the government benefits will have to be honored.

does anyone think that all this borrowing is even sustainable?

i see they are going to delay anything on the next 1.2 trillion dollars obama wants until after their vacations are over. really?

Good question but silly to ask it to liberals who obviously do believe in unlimited nonstop government spending and unlimited government welfare handouts, unlimited illegal immigration because the whole world wants in on the very easy money and handouts.

The liberals obviously believe unemployment benefits can be extended indefinitely - welfare programs expanded to include anyone from any country. All we have to do is keep raising the national debt because in their minds it can never go too high.

[floridasandy]

speaking of unemployment, the numbers are mind-boggling---look at this:

State and local governments spent $66.2 billion in unemployment compensation, representing an 86 percent increase from 2008.


this report has so many interesting statistics and graphs on government spending.
Government Spending Details: Federal State Local for 2012 - Charts

or this one:
State and local government revenues declined 22.1 percent from 2008 to $2.1 trillion in 2009. The decline, similar to last year, was driven in large part by insurance trust revenue, which declined 683.5 percent in 2009 from $85.3 billion to –$498.0 billion. (rut-row).

or this:
In contrast to revenues, expenditures increased 4.6 percent to $3.0 trillion for state and local governments in 2009.

or this one is bad:
Cash and security holdings are dominated generally by public-employee retirement trust funds which comprise 51.7 percent of the total category. It includes only the cash or security holdings of governments, excluding nonfinancial assets such as real or personal property.
• State and local government cash and security holdings declined 15 percent to $4.6 trillion in 2009. (in 1 year)-- bye-bye.

does anyone think this can keep working?

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

speaking of unemployment the numbers are mind-boggling-look at this:

State and local governments spent $66.2 billion in unemployment compensation, representing an 86.0 percent increase from 2008.
Source: 2009 Annual Surveys of State and Local

this report has so many interesting statistics on government spending.
Government Spending Details: Federal State Local for 2012 - Charts

Don't forget that p/t workers were allowed to claim unemployment insurance with parts of the 2009 stimulus bill. That would have inflated the numbers drastically. Only a few states refused that part of the stimulus.

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Don't forget that p/t workers were allowed to claim unemployment insurance with parts of the 2009 stimulus bill. That would have inflated the numbers drastically. Only a few states refused that part of the stimulus.

well, isn't that what all these 1.2 trillion dollar requests are about-extend and pretend, instead of trying to actually fix anything?

of course, every time you ask for more money the interest goes up, crowding out everything else, including the ability to create enough growth to actually pay anything back.

running up the charge card isn't the same as paying it off, and as everyone knows it puts you further in the hole.

are they angling for bankruptcy as a country?

whose debts are reneged on then?

[floridasandy]

let me add one more post to the mix, which i saw on the blaze earlier. we also have the disaster of high ranking government employees literally robbing their cities blind, as in philadelphia:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/phil...urn-on-monday/

Tasco, along with many of her fellow Council members, is enrolled in Philadelphia’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP). DROP allows city workers to collect salary and build up pension money during the last four years of their employment, writes Aaron Kase of Philadelphia Weekly.

Naturally, when DROP was originally introduced, it was touted as being “revenue neutral.” It’s been anything but that. Since its introduction, Philadelphia’s DROP program has cost the city $258 million in extra pension costs over a decade, according to a 2010 Boston College study.

on top of everything else, the cities are supposed to fund this BS? that's literally 258 million dollars deferred from running a city.

oh, and retiring with a half million dollar pension and then returning to work the next day, when so many people are out of work, is DISGRACEFUL, and philly is not a rich city:

Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: (obviously worse now)


Philadelphia:
25.0%
Whole state:
12.5%

[SyraBrian]

Aren't we getting off-topic here? I thought this thread was about California having thirty-three percent of the welfare recipients, not a cattle call of every conservative grievance.

[Huckleberry3911948]

Unfortunately we are becoming a 3 horse economy just like Hawaii--- welfare, military and tourism.