Welfare now 21% of Federal Budget

SixNein

No, I was just accepting the definition as being used for the sake of argument, and I was pointing out that republicans are excluding programs that target old, rich, veterans, and business. I'm curious as to why they should be excluded. In my opinion, the list only includes things republicans don't like while excluding things they do like or need for votes.

And yes, people traditionally use welfare in politics to refer to TANF. IE: Welfare rolls, welfare queens, welfare reform, or just plain old welfare.

Mitt Romney, for example, has been investing quite a bit on running attack ads on "welfare" (TANF).
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-215_162-...g-welfare-ads/

Of course, those attack ads were wildly false. But quite frankly, I'm starting to agree with the Romney team that facts simply don't matter. Half of eligible Americans don't vote, and so whatever candidate can rally its partisan base wins.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course medicare is for poor people.

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statisti.../35chartbk.pdf

Though to be fair...

http://www.nber.org/bah/summer04/w10466.html

In addition, half of recipients of Medicare are lower than 200% of federal poverty level. So many of them will also qualify for many of the programs listed.

http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/heal...9_medicare.pdf

And they get a lot more out of these services than they put into them.


At the end of the day, they only included things that didn't like while not including things they do like or need to win votes. And it's not very useful outside of making some kind of talking point to use on the campaign trail. And many people will likely associate the welfare spending claim with TANF.

If they were serious about dealing with debt, they would be talking about health-care programs and their effects throughout the federal system. For example, states may shift funds away from higher education for the purpose of funding its health-care services; as a result, the cost of education increases leading to higher costing programs like the pell grant.

Health care spending, military spending, and taxes are the largest problems in our budget.

SixNein

One would just need to create a rigorous definition of welfare and include all programs that fall within it. For example, should programs that encourage social mobility be defined as welfare? If so then all programs that meet such a criteria should be included.

But at the end of the day, what is accomplished?

It seems to me that politicians are getting ready to practice the fine art of plucking feathers off a goose. They want to get the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing. Military spending, healthcare spending, and revenues are really messing up federal and state budgets. But they are also impossible to touch without getting zapped by the ultra partisan gods. So it seems to me that their going to let it go until the whole thing falls apart. Even with huge cuts in this list of yours, the growth rates on health-care will make up for it. The growth rates for 2013 is projected to be around 7.5%. So health-care costs are doubling around every 9.33 years at that rate. And it is going to cripple state and federal budgets, and it can't be covered up with cutting elsewhere forever. In my opinion, they are looking for cuts that will allow them to kick the big bang a little further down the road. And the further they kick it, the bigger the bang.

On the other hand, things are so partisan right now that our government isn't functioning properly. Just look at the major disruptions occurring. The fiscal cliff is a fairly dangerous thing because it injects a lot of uncertainty in the market. In addition, it would throw us back into recession. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't wait until the last second to do something about it. But eventually, one day, they are going to surprise everyone and simply not act. We keep using the assumption that some things are so terrible that they'll definitely act. I'm not sure that is a safe assumption anymore. The amount of people wanting us to default last year was staggering. The nation is turning into a situation where the ignorant rule the wise.

And that's starting to take a toll on me. Honestly, I could write a 40 page report on nothing but criticism of either party.

Pythagorean

Welcome to P&WA, hope you weren't expecting genuine discussion. Rule #1, for each fact there are two interpretations, but your interpretation is right and the other guy's is wrong. Since you can't prove interpretations, just use tautology and accuse the other guy of ignorance.

Hope that clears everything up. Good luck, here's your helmet.

aquitaine

Wow, that's quite a list. I'm seeing a lot of redundancies, so wouldn't it make sense to roll several related programs into one? Like for example free school lunches and food stamps? I would think such consolidations would reduce the bureaucracies, making more efficient use of tax money......

SixNein

I wouldn't call any of this an attack.

People who enjoy talking about politics do so because they like the process of argumentation. Arguments are an excellent way to test ideas and often things can be learned from them. Of course, there are many people who don't like their ideas being challenged, and they will take every argument as if it is a personal attack. But there isn't too much of that in this forum.

As a bystander, one should just judge this by the merits of the arguments being presented. It could be that you disagree with both arguments, and you should jump in to test out your own ideas. Unless the argument is that rare thing that gets instant consensus, your idea will likely be challenged by someone, and you'll be able to learn the strengths and weaknesses of it. Just don't take it personal.