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Currently we are spending 1.127 trillion dollars on welfare benefits. This consists of welfare and medicaid. That works out to a little over 3500 dollars for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Can we continue to spend 1/3 of every tax dollar on welfare?
I am not against helping those in need but it seems as if we need a different approach to helping.
At least welfare is doing someone some good. The war in Iraq cost $2 trillion, or $6700 per person, and did no one any good.
I can see the need for taking care of those truly unable to work due to physical limitations. Everyone else should be out there 40 hours a week minimum earning their keep.
The exchanges in this thread is a perfect example of why the problem of poverty can't be tackled seriously by either liberals or conservatives.
On one side, conservatives very angrily want to cut off social safety nets. On the other side, liberals want to throw more money at the problem hoping something would eventually stick.
Anyone who has ever worked with the poor to help them know that poverty is not a problem of the lack of job or money. It goes a lot deeper than that. The core of the problem can be traced to human psychology. Poverty in most cases get passed from generation to generation. People who are trapped in them are in a state of what psychologists call "learned helplessness". Look it up.
Poverty is not a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. It also cannot be solved by cutting off social safety nets (benefits). And no, despite what some right wingers on here wish, cutting off benefits won't make the poor die off. Most third world countries have no social benefits to speak of and the poor don't seem to be dying off there.
But yeah, go ahead and keep arguing over how much money we should or should not throw at the problem of poverty. Nothing gets solved in the end.
Look at most third world countries. They have no social benefits to speak of. They have millions of hungry kids roaming the streets. And yet, they are still poor and near starvation most of the time. They also have no trouble reproducing.
It does in fact match up with the data provided. Unless you have another source we can assume you just don't like facts. If you deduct unemployment and workers compensation from the total we are still at a little over 1 trillion dollars spent on welfare.
Put up or shut up. Please cite a source that disputes the numbers.
From the top of your link:
Quote:
What is the spending on Welfare?
In FY 2017 total US government spending on welfare — federal, state, and local — is “guesstimated†to be $1,127 billion, including $646 billion for Medicaid, and $481 billion in other welfare.
It's a "guesstimate" do you know what that even means? It means "maybe" or "might be", get it now? And your 'source' includes two classifications of spending which no other economist has included in the category of welfare:
Here's an explanation of how a site like usgovernmentspending plays with data to come up with very false claims such as welfare spending being over 1 billion when it's not anywhere near that: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.ff5a37ede035
The exchanges in this thread is a perfect example of why the problem of poverty can't be tackled seriously by either liberals or conservatives.
On one side, conservatives very angrily want to cut off social safety nets. On the other side, liberals want to throw more money at the problem hoping something would eventually stick.
Anyone who has ever worked with the poor to help them know that poverty is not a problem of the lack of job or money. It goes a lot deeper than that. The core of the problem can be traced to human psychology. Poverty in most cases get passed from generation to generation. People who are trapped in them are in a state of what psychologists call "learned helplessness". Look it up.
Poverty is not a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. It also cannot be solved by cutting off social safety nets (benefits). And no, despite what some right wingers on here wish, cutting off benefits won't make the poor die off. Most third world countries have no social benefits to speak of and the poor don't seem to be dying off there.
But yeah, go ahead and keep arguing over how much money we should or should not throw at the problem of poverty. Nothing gets solved in the end.
Welfare allows companies like Walmart to hire labor at less than a living wage. Welfare prevents mass riots and demonstrations. Welfare keeps the US from gaining the reputation that it probably should for the treatment of it's poor.
I've worked with the poor for years and yes, lack of a job and money is very much what the problem is, sounds like you grew up with that wonderful Calvinist ethic that some people who are poor are irredeemable so it's probably good if they die.
Currently we are spending 1.127 trillion dollars on welfare benefits. This consists of welfare and medicaid. That works out to a little over 3500 dollars for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Can we continue to spend 1/3 of every tax dollar on welfare?
I am not against helping those in need but it seems as if we need a different approach to helping.
Yes we continue and we should continue. I agree that we can do it a better way, but modern technology and modern society has dictated we need some sort of welfare.
I agree the welfare needs to stop, that is why I support a cut in the military.
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