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Yes -- because in addition there are housing vouchers, food stamps, Obamaphone, Medicaid, utility assistance. Add it all up -- it comes out to be a lot.
Now if you work for a living, you have to pay your own housing, buy your own food, pay for your electricity, cell phone, and even have to buy your own health insurance with a high deductible and copays.
some of those are interlinked, e.g. if you get food stamps you also qualify for a phone (unless someone else at your address already has one) but I'm not aware that any of the above entitle someone to a housing voucher, the disabled have to compete with everyone else for an insufficient number of housing vouchers and many never receive a voucher.
the United States spent over $60,000 to support welfare programs per each household that is in poverty. The calculations are based on data from the Census, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Research Services.
"According to the Census’s American Community Survey, the number of households with incomes below the poverty line in 2011 was 16,807,795," the Senate Budget Committee notes. "If you divide total federal and state spending by the number of households with incomes below the poverty line, the average spending per household in poverty was $61,194 in 2011."
??? Many people in poverty do not use any of these programs; some people not in poverty do use some of these programs. why would you count money spent on programs for the non-poor as spending on the poor?
One issue is that way too many people are put on the disability rolls. The ones that make me the absolute maddest are kids with ADHD or other learning disabilities. We have created a system where the family financially benefits by having their kids do poorly in school. We tried to give extra FREE tutoring over the summer to get kids to grade level and had parents refuse because if the kid no longer was behind they would lose their check. It's bullcrap! For kids like these, provide educational services and medical care for that child, but no cash.
You have a government encouraging this dependency. What do you expect ?
While this is true if the budget areas where the spending is truly outrageous were taken care of and our deficits and debt were reduced noone would be complainign about entitlements.
Money going back into peoples pockets deos not phase me as much as our military budget and healthcare costs that have decimated our economy top to bottom.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
You really think the people who pay income taxes are the same people who collect welfare benefits?
Being one of those people in the past, yeah, I do. Thanks for asking an intelligent question. There are some here who just ask stupid ones.
Ever hear of WiC or food stamps? I qualified for both as a US soldier. My kid was born premature and required predigested formula. If I recall that was 180 bucks a month. Might've been 120... it's been like 17 years ago. It was a big chunk of my pay at the time. WiC covered that.
Oh yeah, his birth cost me ~2000 bucks. I hit the catastrophic limit. It cost the taxpayers more than 100,000 dollars. Thank you God, for military benefits. I remember I got a bill for $94,000 dollars. And one for 8,000 after that. And some others.
I generally agree with you, but, devil's advocate here for a moment: we know for a fact that bad nutrition in the first few years of life can stunt IQ and that low IQ is highly correlated with likelihood to commit crime or chronically go on welfare, so you could argue that even if it isn't "fair," that it is possible (couldn't say for certain without studying the matter) that in the long term the benefits of better early-childhood nutrition might be quantitatively more significant than the dysgenic incentives of the policy, to such a degree that the eventual lower criminal justice and welfare spending would make the food stamps now flat out a good investment.
Not necessarily saying that is the case cause I don't really know, but it's possible and can't really be ruled out automatically; just throwing it out there because I think it's something that very much needs to be considered before you cut programs that help feed kids younger than school age. A little money for food now is a lot cheaper than remedial education, prisons, and more people on welfare later.
Obviously, you haven't seen what the welfare slugs are getting with their food stamps.
Cocoa Puffs
Twinkies
Coke
...and so forth.
And when they aren't buying junk food, they're loading up on steak and lobster.
Go on welfare like them and you can live the dream. Eat all the steak and lobster you want in the ghetto.
Yep, they are livin the life aren't they. It's no damn wonder they would rather sit on the couch collecting then work. It has to be why they live entire lives this way.
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