The 2009 Index of Dependence on Government (Are We Socialist yet?)
Posted on 03/28/2010 1:59:15 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
The 2009 Index of Dependence on Government (Are We Socialist yet?)
That’s the plan. Get everyone hooked on a so-called freebie
and they’ll be a socialist voter forever.
Obama is inviting us all to have a second childhood.
Rector's seminal 2006 study, Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States: A Book of Charts, should be required reading for any policy maker.
The United States has the richest poor people in the world.
What are they calling poor? The so called poor around here have cell phones, money for drugs ,tobacco and cars.
And now pie. Really, really expensive pie.
Barack the Kenyan told “Joe the Plumber” that he wasn’t going to do this. The only problem is, the morons who live in this country didn’t believe him. They wanted to make “history” so they voted for “the black guy”.
Won’t be for long....within the next few years plus, the US will be going default and be assured, some serious cuts are going to take place in those vast social programs we have in this country....bet.
I think I’ll stop working to become poor, so the gov’t can make me rich.
My point exactly. I have to pass a drug test to get and keep a job, but the government takes my earnings to give to drug dealers. What a country!
Hu Jintao will call the shots financially for us in the long run.
He might try. But I think these clowns have reached the end of the road on taxes. Further tax increases are just going to reduce the GDP, and the deficit now exceeding $1.5 trillion, will balloon to in excess of $2 trillion per year. Needless to say, that won’t last long before the economic machine assumes the fetal position.
If they won't name the father, they don't get welfare.
Make those Feral Tom Cats pay, one way or another. Support, Castrate, Prison. Their choice.
I am sick and tired of the Tom Cats procreating on every street corner, with dozens of women. These procreated kids will someday procreate with their own sisters, cousins.
They have no way of knowing each other. Find the fathers, take a DNA and match it to all kids on welfare.
This is simple, will it be done, NO.
Millions, billions, trillions
Are really just
Omillions, Obillions, Otrillions
Vast-visioned America
Progressive to the end
Envisions all the way to Ozillions
Wheelbarrows-full for the minions
Moodys’, Fitches, Standard and Poor
Triple AAA to BBB- evermore
Triple OAAA to OBBB
It’s all inevitable, you see
No never stop working. There are lots of folks depending on your taxes.
I see you are a health professional. I had a small medical equipment business for several years. I’d make deliveries to public housing areas where the residents lived better than me; big TVs, nice cars, stereos, big slobs on food stamps, drug dealers on every corner. It was such a motivating effect. Makes me so proud to work my butt off 60-70 hours a week and have 60% of my earnings taken from me via taxes.
Under the new measure, a family will be judged “poor” if its income falls below a certain specified income threshold. Nothing new there, but, unlike the current poverty standards, the new income thresholds will have a built-in escalator clause: They will rise automatically in direct proportion to any rise in the living standards of the average American.
The current poverty measure counts absolute purchasing power — how much steak and potatoes you can buy. The new measure will count comparative purchasing power — how much steak and potatoes you can buy relative to other people. As the nation becomes wealthier, the poverty standards will increase in proportion. In other words, Obama will employ a statistical trick to ensure that “the poor will always be with you,” no matter how much better off they get in absolute terms.
The Left has promoted this idea of an ever-rising poverty measure for a long time. It was floated at the beginning of the War on Poverty and flatly rejected by Pres. Lyndon Johnson. Not so President Obama, who consistently seeks to expand the far-left horizons of U.S. politics.
The weird new poverty measure will produce very odd results. For example, if the real income of every single American were to magically triple over night, the new poverty measure would show there had been no drop in “poverty,” because the poverty income threshold would also triple. Under the Obama system, poverty can be reduced only if the incomes of the “poor” are rising faster than the incomes of everyone else.
Another paradox of the new poverty measure is that countries such as Bangladesh and Albania will have lower poverty rates than the United States, even though the actual living conditions in those countries are extremely bad. Haiti would probably have a very low poverty rate when measured by the Obama system because the earthquake reduced much of the population to a uniform penniless squalor.
According to Obama’s measure, economic growth per se has no impact on poverty. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the incomes of nearly all Americans have increased sevenfold, after adjusting for inflation. However, from Obama’s perspective, this increase in real incomes had no impact on poverty, because the wages of those at the bottom of the income distribution did not rise faster than the incomes of those in the middle.
What has the Obama measure to do with actual poverty? Not much. For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 40 million persons classified as poor under the government’s current poverty definition fit that description. Most of America’s poor live in material conditions that would have been judged comfortable, or even well-off, two generations ago.
The government’s own data show that the typical American defined as poor (according to the traditional, pre-Obama poverty measure) has two color televisions, cable or satellite service, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He also has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is far from the stark images conveyed by the mainstream media and liberal politicians.
Clearly, “poverty” as currently defined by the government has little connection with “poverty” as the average American understands it. The new Obama poverty measure will stretch this semantic gap, artificially swelling the number of “poor” Americans, and severing any link between the government’s concept of poverty and even modest deprivation.
In honest English, the new system will measure income inequality, not poverty. Why not just call it an “inequality” index? Answer: because the American voter is unwilling to support massive welfare increases, soaring deficits, and tax increases to equalize incomes. However, if the goal of income leveling is camouflaged as a desperate struggle against poverty, hunger, and dire deprivation, then the political prospects improve. The new measure is a public-relations Trojan horse, smuggling in a “spread the wealth” agenda under the ruse of fighting real material privation — a condition that is rare in our society. Source
Since Dingy Harry Reid had previously called the war in Iraq lost, can we just call the War on Poverty lost, too?
***“Stay on welfare and don’t get married.” This message, however, is the very reason poverty continues to be a problem in the U.S. and why Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty failed.****
Absolutly true! I remember when Johnson went to Appalachia to announce his program and job training to a hillbilly that had never held a job. Twenty five years later, that same hillbilly still had never worked a day of his life but had spent his life still drawing government WELFARE checks.
When my mom retired, she had only SSI to support her, plus a small job. One day a local social worker for the welfare department tried to get her to become a welfare recipiant. We found out that the ONLY reason she wanted mom on welfare was it gave the social worker more JOB SECURITY!
Mom never went on welfare.
Old joke from the 1960s...
A hillbilly is napping while his wife is reading the newspaper.
Wife: “Luke, it says here the president has declared war on poverty!”
Husband: “Well, if he wants me in that war he is gonna have to draft me!”
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