Understanding the hidden $1.1 trillion welfare system

[TalkRadio]

The federal government has played the predominant role in designing and financing government-provided welfare since the 1930s. Of the more than $1.1 trillion spent in FY 2016, federal expenditures accounted for $829 billion (74 percent), and state expenditures accounted for $297 billion (26 percent). Most state spending ($213 billion) occurs in a single program: Medicaid. If Medicaid is excluded from the spending count, about 85 percent of the remaining means-tested expenditures comes from federal funds.

Federal welfare spending is spread across 14 government departments and agencies, nine major budget functions, and 89 separate programs. Spending levels for many programs can be discovered only by data mining the annual 1,300-page budget appendix produced by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The means-tested welfare system provides nine different categories of assistance to poor and low-income persons: cash, food, housing, medical care, social services, child development and child care, jobs and job training, community development, and targeted federal education programs. In each category of assistance, government provides assistance to poor and lower-income persons that it does not provide to the general population.

The financial cost of the War on Poverty has been enormous. Between 1965 and 2016, total means-tested welfare spending by federal and state governments cost taxpayers roughly $27.8 trillion in constant FY 2016 dollars. By contrast, the cost to the U.S. government for all military wars from the American Revolution to the present is $8 trillion in FY 2016 dollars.In other words, the War on Poverty has cost the taxpayers nearly three and a half times the combined cost of all military wars in U.S. history. The most expensive military war in U.S. history was World War II, but its cost was only $4.3 trillion in FY 2016 dollars: about one-sixth of the ongoing cost of the War on Poverty.

https://www.heritage.org/welfare/re...-11-trillion-welfare-system-and-how-reform-it

 

[Hypoxia]

https://www.heritage.org/welfare/re...-11-trillion-welfare-system-and-how-reform-it

You omitted a few trillion the Pentagon has misplaced. Is the military-industrial complex paying you well? Let's see, your article is a product of the Heritage Foundation, now a tool of Rebekah Mercer, sugar mommy for BriteFart and Bannon. Just another reliable source, hey? Does she pay you for posting here to try to influence a dozen readers?

 

[bellisarius]

You omitted a few trillion the Pentagon has misplaced. Is the military-industrial complex paying you well? Let's see, your article is a product of the Heritage Foundation, now a tool of Rebekah Mercer, sugar mommy for BriteFart and Bannon. Just another reliable source, hey? Does she pay you for posting here to try to influence a dozen readers?

Typical neo-Marxist rejoinder. Are the sources cited? Are the numbers factual? If so then it really doesn't matter who did the research, does it?

 

[Amoebah]

Bellicousious is reading from the yuri lavarov playbook again.

Never happened. Lies! The other guy did it! Prove it!

 

[WoundedKnee]

Hypoxia has six, very-well memorized, stock responses that she plays for every topic.
Maybe seven if you include the newer Trump rant, but it's just a variation on the stock reply about Republicans/Conservatives.

 

[bellisarius]

Hypoxia has six, very-well memorized, stock responses that she plays for every topic.
Maybe seven if you include the newer Trump rant, but it's just a variation on the stock reply about Republicans/Conservatives.

Pretty much, a shallow mind on display.

I don't give a rats ass if the source is Mad Magazine. Are the sources of the data cited? Are those citations indeed factual?

You can debate to your hearts content any conclusions the authors may derive from the data, but the data sets themselves, if verified, stand alone.

 

[RocketLauncher]

A welfare thread? Good. It's about time we started talking about corporate handouts.

https://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-vs-social-welfare/

 

[bellisarius]

A welfare thread? Good. It's about time we started talking about corporate handouts.

https://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-vs-social-welfare/

Why don't you start a thread? You may be surprised as to how many "conservatives" are pissed off about that too.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Why don't you start a thread? You may be surprised as to how many "conservatives" are pissed off about that too.

I would but I've been told I need to pepper my threads and posts with edits and disclaimers if I want to express my opinion or engage in light hearted banter. So I'll pass. Btw did I mention those posters on the AH are mean?

 

[Rightguide]

I would but I've been told I need to pepper my threads and posts with edits and disclaimers if I want to express my opinion or engage in light hearted banter. So I'll pass. Btw did I mention those posters on the AH are mean?

There's mean people everywhere, point and laugh, answer in kind, ridicule them and have fun doing it.

 

[RocketLauncher]

There's mean people everywhere, point and laugh, answer in kind, ridicule them and have fun doing it.

True dat. I attended the school of hard knocks (literally) and it seems to have thickened my skin a little.Good thing I'm not an overly sensitive egoist pimping out my work under the guise of being a 'fluffy' small mammal acting affronted by anyone who dares to disagree with me or doesn't worship my every written word or I might get easily offended. I prefer to respond in kind.

Sorry for the hijack. Now back to regular programming....
Poor people = bad, poor people on welfare = evil.

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

I would but I've been told I need to pepper my threads and posts with edits and disclaimers if I want to express my opinion or engage in light hearted banter. So I'll pass. Btw did I mention those posters on the AH are mean?

There's mean people everywhere, point and laugh, answer in kind, ridicule them and have fun doing it.

I don't understand the mentality behind that type of editing and disclaimers. People have been having fun engaging in light hearted banner for decades. We all do it. Even when it's about whomever we support. It's part of speaking freely. If it's within the forum guidelines, so much the better. If the policies change, then everyone should receive some type of notice.

This is not a newscast forum of any sort where anything said should be taken as facts. If the conversations get ugly, violent, or overtly bullying then it's up to whomever monitors the site and/or forum to say something.

 

[RocketLauncher]

I don't understand the mentality behind that type of editing and disclaimers. People have been having fun engaging in light hearted banner for decades. We all do it. Even when it's about whomever we support. It's part of speaking freely. If it's within the forum guidelines, so much the better. If the policies change, then everyone should receive some type of notice.

This is not a newscast forum of any sort where anything said should be taken as facts. If the conversations get ugly, violent, or overtly bullying then it's up to whomever monitors the site and/or forum to say something.

Apparently you haven't visited the AH forum lately.

 

[phrodeau]

Some people are too proud and patriotic to accept government handouts. You won't find the wealthy and the corporate heads among them.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Typical neo-Marxist rejoinder. Are the sources cited? Are the numbers factual? If so then it really doesn't matter who did the research, does it?

Well, as they say there are three types of lies....
lies, damn lies and statistics.

 

[Liar]

https://www.heritage.org/welfare/re...-11-trillion-welfare-system-and-how-reform-it

So.

What do you think?

 

[WoundedKnee]

Some people are too proud and patriotic to accept government handouts. You won't find the wealthy and the corporate heads among them.

Those aren't handouts. Those are government incentives aimed at getting business to engage in behaviors at locations that government desires. There are no business loopholes that government gave business to keep it propped up, but again, government desiring business to do its bidding. That is so much different than "welfare" and the fraud and government inflation that goes along with it.

 

[TalkRadio]

So.

What do you think?

Audit the entire program & make every recipient requalify for benefits.

 

[Liar]

Audit the entire program & make every recipient requalify for benefits.

Well, that's ceratinly a way to create a fuckton of government jobs.

 

[phrodeau]

Audit the entire program & make every recipient requalify for benefits.

And then we’ll fire every worker in the country, and make them reapply for their jobs.

 

[TalkRadio]

Well, that's ceratinly a way to create a fuckton of government jobs.

The audits will be outsourced to private contractors. I have every confidence the money saved will far exceed the money spent.