Anonymous wrote:http://federalsafetynet.com/uploads/3/4/1/4/34142243/welfare_and_spending_on_poverty_over_the_years_2015.xlsx

Half of the figure cited by OP is spending on Medicaid. And most Medicaid beneficiaries are not "the poors". Most medicaide spending is on the elderly (Medicaid pays a large percent of nursing home costs) the disabled (see SSI beneficiaries) and kids (through CHIPS). 1/4 of Americans are covered through Medicaid.

The second largest payout is "negative income tax" aka, the Earned Income Tax Credit. Which you don't get unless you have earned income. Pell grants are up there too. SSI, School lunches and head start are also big line items.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A better start would be to end corporate welfare in which companies get away with paying such low wages that a person working a full time job or two part time jobs ends up at the poverty line and thus subsidized by the taxpayer.

They should pay a living wage. And, they can afford to do so.

How about we deal with the out-of-control housing market, in which rent consumes an inordinate amount of many peoples' income, and home ownership is out of reach?

How about we deal with wealth inequality, for example there being no legitimate reason why a corporate CEO today should be making tens of millions of dollars a year when his predecessor a few decades ago wasn't even making 1 million a year. That CEO today isn't actually any more effective, special or worth the extra money than his predecessor was.

How about we actually reward the producers and those who create jobs, like small business, and disincentivize and much more aggressively tax people who just suck money out of the economy, house flippers and middlemen and hedge fund traders and arbitrageurs who make their money through manipulating real estate, commodities, stocks, currency et cetera and who don't actually produce anything or contribute in any meaningful way to society. And even more so with predatory businesses.

Here is the short version/summation of the above....

How about we kill free enterprise? How about we create an environment that eliminates incentive? How about we take from the rich and give it to the poor?

Anonymous wrote:A better start would be to end corporate welfare in which companies get away with paying such low wages that a person working a full time job or two part time jobs ends up at the poverty line and thus subsidized by the taxpayer.

They should pay a living wage. And, they can afford to do so.

How about we deal with the out-of-control housing market, in which rent consumes an inordinate amount of many peoples' income, and home ownership is out of reach?

How about we deal with wealth inequality, for example there being no legitimate reason why a corporate CEO today should be making tens of millions of dollars a year when his predecessor a few decades ago wasn't even making 1 million a year. That CEO today isn't actually any more effective, special or worth the extra money than his predecessor was.

How about we actually reward the producers and those who create jobs, like small business, and disincentivize and much more aggressively tax people who just suck money out of the economy, house flippers and middlemen and hedge fund traders and arbitrageurs who make their money through manipulating real estate, commodities, stocks, currency et cetera and who don't actually produce anything or contribute in any meaningful way to society. And even more so with predatory businesses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

You can't ban people from having children. You cannot enslave their reproductive rights because they get welfare.

We give money to poor people because that's the right, ethical, and productive thing to do. We don't give them money to control their behavior.

It's not right or ethical if people are going to have kids to increase their welfare payments.... and don't tell me that doesn't happen, because it sure as hell does. Gaming that welfare system happens all the time.

People enroll in to food stamp programs also and then set up a store front and sell the food they receive for profit. That's all documented. It's not policed nearly enough.

Please provide a link for this assertion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would submit that for the plight of those on poverty as compared to other countries, the poor in the US are much better off. Are they $50 trillion better off? Probably not, but you cannot compare how people were living in poverty in the 1930's as opposed to today.

50 years ago is 1967 but if you want to talk about poverty in the 1930s after the Great Depression, there was a higher rate of children living in married households.

The Great Society programs contributed to the decline of marriage so that a large number of poor children now live in single parent or grandparent households It is one of the worst effects of the Great Society

Yes, let's blame it on the liberal agenda.

That liberal bastion, the Brookings Institution, blamed the decline of marriage on the Great Society programs

To what do you attribute the decline in marriage, PP?

Marriage is declining among non-poor people as well. To what do you attribute that decline?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

You can't ban people from having children. You cannot enslave their reproductive rights because they get welfare.

We give money to poor people because that's the right, ethical, and productive thing to do. We don't give them money to control their behavior.

It's not right or ethical if people are going to have kids to increase their welfare payments.... and don't tell me that doesn't happen, because it sure as hell does. Gaming that welfare system happens all the time.

People enroll in to food stamp programs also and then set up a store front and sell the food they receive for profit. That's all documented. It's not policed nearly enough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LBJ created generational poverty.

The best welfare that can be given to the poor are jobs. And President Trump's going to give the poor jobs. He's in process of re-industrializing America. I know that fixing the intentional disasters of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama will be a task for a true leader. Thank God that we now have a man's man running our operation.

Yes, and he's also in the process of standing on the beach and forbidding the tide from coming in.

The manufacturing sector is doing fine in the US. It's just hiring far fewer people than it used to. Trump can't change that without banning automation.

Anonymous wrote:LBJ created generational poverty.

The best welfare that can be given to the poor are jobs. And President Trump's going to give the poor jobs. He's in process of re-industrializing America. I know that fixing the intentional disasters of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama will be a task for a true leader. Thank God that we now have a man's man running our operation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting responses. I would like to hear the issue of self responsibility. If you cannot take care of yourself I agree you should not starve, be homeless, or suffer health wise. But if someone else is going to pay for that then you should have to concede some of your freedoms such as how you spend financial support, have to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, not have children while you cannot afford to take care of yourself. In the case you do not say " thank you" for the help and keep living a destructive lifestyle, then I believe it is you who forfeits the safety net. At that point if a charity wishes to help wonderful but government has to draw lines at no wins

Slavery.

Wow. I agree with the first PP.

So you're saying that if we set up some parameters for people receiving taxpayer money, we are enslaving them? So if we were to say that people on welfare cannot spend money on, oh....I don't know....fancy hats, that's akin to slavery (especially when these same people are saying the welfare they get isn't sufficient)? We, as people giving money to poor people, have every right to block poor expenditures of that money. If the poor people getting the fruits of our labor don't like it, they don't have to take our money.

You can't ban people from having children. You cannot enslave their reproductive rights because they get welfare.

We give money to poor people because that's the right, ethical, and productive thing to do. We don't give them money to control their behavior.

It's not right or ethical if people are going to have kids to increase their welfare payments.... and don't tell me that doesn't happen, because it sure as hell does. Gaming that welfare system happens all the time.

People enroll in to food stamp programs also and then set up a store front and sell the food they receive for profit. That's all documented. It's not policed nearly enough.

Anonymous wrote:LBJ created generational poverty.

The best welfare that can be given to the poor are jobs. And President Trump's going to give the poor jobs. He's in process of reindustrializing America. I know that fixing the intentional disasters of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama will be a task for a true leader. Thank God that we now have a man's man running our operation.