Welfare - brother can you spare half a trillion dollars ?

I hope you're not eating or cleaning your guns, put everything away, relax, sit back in a nice chair with your favorite drink before you read on. It's time for some grisly details on government-run welfare costs.

I've been reviewing some numbers on http://www.usgovernmentspending.com, and perusing the wonderful website of the "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", with it's British "s" instead of "z" and all. It's a real hoot if you sometime you feel just a little too "Sound of Music" and feel the need to unhappify yourself a little. Of course, I had to find the About section just to find out what OECD was, but it was well worth the clicking around. It became very clear just how much our government's idea of budgeting and spending is all wrapped up in the 19th century dandy boy eurocrat notions of what's fair and what's not according to the visions of the over-educated and spineless intelligentsia who make it their life's ambition to forego a job in the interest of helping the rest of the world conform to their dissertations by way of managing governments and the largest corporations.

From the list of accounts in the grisly budget details, I don't see one that we can't do without if We the People just took over and provided our own welfare to ourselves through private sector organizations and family and individual giving.

Here's the breakdown of accounts for the 2011 $495.6 billion (shown in billions) Welfare total:

Family and children_______$107.2 (note that it's not Government and children, but Family and children) Unemployment_____________$134.8 Unemployment trust________$0.0 Workers compensation______$7.6 Housing___________________$69.4 Social exclusion n.e.c.____$176.6 (n.e.c. means "not elsewhere classified")

Payment Where Earned Income Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_________44.9 Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_____________22.9 Payment Where Alternative Minimum Tax Credit Exceeds Liability F______0.6 Making Work Pay Credit_______________________________________________13.9 Payment Where Adoption Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_____________0.9 Receipts from SSI Administrative Fee_______________________________-0.2 Recovery of Beneficiary Overpayments from SSI Program_______________-3.3 Supplemental Security Income Program_________________________________3.6 Supplemental Security Income Program_________________________________52.7 State Supplemental Fees, SSI________________________________________-0.2 State Supplemental Fees_______________________________________________0.2 Delta between the FY11 Annualized CR and the FY11 Request_____________0.2 Federal Share of Child Support Collections___________________________-0.8 Delta between the FY11 Annualized CR and the FY11 Request_____________-0.2 Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Supp______3.6 Low Income Home Energy Assistance____________________________________5.1 Refugee and Entrant Assistance_______________________________________0.5 Refugee and Entrant Assistance________________________________________0.1 Payments to States for the Child Care and Development Block Gran______2.7 Contingency Fund______________________________________________________2.4 Payments to States for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance____________6.9 Child Care Entitlement to States______________________________________2.7 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families_______________________________17.0 Children's Research and Technical Assistance__________________________0.1

That's about $1,000 per capita ! Of course, many do not give, so there are a lot of people giving more than that to non-profits and charities. Well, they can be any sort of non-profit, from saving trees to George Soro's treasonous influence operations. But I can see no excuse due to the private sector not having the money to provide charity for themselves: people can take care of people directly, through families and through churches. Why are we sending billions all over the world to those who are living under tryannical dictators when those people will not overthrow their own tryannical dictator ? We're enabling the tyrannical dictator to stay in power - because we are feeding his people ! How did America get started ? Job one, we overthrew our tyrannical dictator !

Now we come down to just what this costs you and me - that is, the government bugdet line called "Welfare".

Out of 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 (the latest year I found data for), almost 52 million have no tax liability, according to the Tax Foundation.

So what's the cost per taxpayer - who actually pays taxes - of $495.6 billion dollars, when you spread it over 90 million taxpayers ?

Of course, many of those taxpayers paid less than $5,500 in tax, so for the rest it's a bit more. And I don't have the exact figure for the number of tax "payers" in 2011, but it is a bit fewer than 2008, so the cost per taxpayer is actually more than $5,500 for 2011. But I trust you get the idea. It's well into the thousands per taxpayer - just for the Welfare section of the budget.

And - that number has gone up 53% SINCE JUST 2008 ! So as recently as 2008 - the per taxpayer number was somewhere around $3,595.

How long can we keep increasing Welfare costs at this rate ? How difficult would it be politically to eliminate this completely and turn it completely over to the private sector where it belongs ? Fat chance, right ?

So there you have it - Welfare. Since tens of millions of Americans accept payments from the government to "help them out" and your Congressman and Senators are more than willing to oblige them, it costs you and every other taxpayer $5,500 this year to "help these folks out".

And it looks like that number will be increasing by about 15% per year or more if our spiral of unemployment and government spending continues.

Perhaps if we can take a cue from the Republicans and just cut the rate of increases to Welfare to 14% or maybe 13%. Wouldn't we all feel better ?

Oops, I keep forgetting HTML in the original posts.

Here are the tables again:

Here’s the breakdown of accounts for the 2011 $495.6 billion (shown in billions) Welfare total:

Family and children_______$107.2 (note that it’s not Government and children, but Family and children)
Unemployment_____________$134.8
Unemployment trust________$0.0
Workers compensation______$7.6
Housing___________________$69.4
Social exclusion n.e.c.____$176.6 (n.e.c. means “not elsewhere classified”)

Social exclusion n.e.c. is made up of (in billions):

Payment Where Earned Income Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_________44.9
Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_____________22.9
Payment Where Alternative Minimum Tax Credit Exceeds Liability F______0.6
Making Work Pay Credit_______________________________________________13.9
Payment Where Adoption Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax_____________0.9
Receipts from SSI Administrative Fee_______________________________-0.2
Recovery of Beneficiary Overpayments from SSI Program_______________-3.3
Supplemental Security Income Program_________________________________3.6
Supplemental Security Income Program_________________________________52.7
State Supplemental Fees, SSI________________________________________-0.2
State Supplemental Fees_______________________________________________0.2
Delta between the FY11 Annualized CR and the FY11 Request_____________0.2
Federal Share of Child Support Collections___________________________-0.8
Delta between the FY11 Annualized CR and the FY11 Request_____________-0.2
Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Supp______3.6
Low Income Home Energy Assistance____________________________________5.1
Refugee and Entrant Assistance_______________________________________0.5
Refugee and Entrant Assistance________________________________________0.1
Payments to States for the Child Care and Development Block Gran______2.7
Contingency Fund______________________________________________________2.4
Payments to States for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance____________6.9
Child Care Entitlement to States______________________________________2.7
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families_______________________________17.0
Children’s Research and Technical Assistance__________________________0.1

This came in an email-blood pressure alert!

Public Housing Tacoma, WA style ... and YOU pay for it!

Now we know where our Social Security money is going.

OK, not a great narrator, but it shows how we help these poor people and I think some large tax increases on all of us could provide more assistance and we can all FEEL good! (/sarcasm off)
http://media.causes.com/1098660?m=6584a9cb

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