Posted on 11/11/2011 5:39:50 AM PST by Kaslin
It has become all too easy today to receive government assistance. Half of all babies born in the U.S. today receive food assistance, and half of all children live in a home that will use food assistance at some point during their childhood. 40 percent of the population in Washington, D.C. is on welfare. Between 2000 and 2010 the number of Americans receiving food assistance more than doubled, expanding to over 47 million, which is more than one-seventh of the population. Forty years ago, only 4.3 million Americans received food assistance. According to a Heritage Foundation study, means-tested welfare has grown faster than every other part of government during the past two decades, including Social Security, Medicare, education and defense.
What is wrong with this picture? Half of everyone in the U.S. is not “poor.” We are the wealthiest nation in the world. Almost half of all households do not even pay any federal income tax. The problem is that welfare is not just provided to the handicapped and unemployed; it is distributed to the lower middle working class and their children. In Arizona, a single parent with four children making up to around $3000 in income per month is eligible to receive $800 a month in food assistance and $400 or more in cash assistance per month. Even with an income somewhat above $3000 per month, there is still some financial assistance available. An able-bodied adult without children making less than approximately $1500 per month is eligible for up to $250 to $300 per month in food assistance from the state of Arizona.
Although illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare, they can receive benefits on behalf of their children through the Aid to Dependent Families Act. Proportionately, illegal immigrant households receive more food assistance than the rest of the population. According to a study from the Center for Immigration Studies, although illegal immigrant households comprise 3.6 percent of the total population, they account for 5.6 percent of food assistance programs. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich announced this year that 22 percent of welfare spending in the county goes to the children of illegal immigrants.
In many ways welfare is becoming easier to obtain. The GOP’s Contract With America welfare to work legislation that former president Bill Clinton signed is gradually being eroded. A cutoff for receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families was put in place in 1996 that limited welfare benefits to five years. But local governments have been slow to enforce the cutoff dates and have found replacement funding through other programs. Half of food stamp aid goes to individuals who have received aid for 8.5 years or more. The 2009 stimulus act removed the requirement that able-bodied recipients without children work at least half-time in order to receive food assistance, and increased the maximum food assistance level by 13 percent. Some states are waiving limits on the amount of savings someone on food assistance may have. Food assistance no longer comes in the form of embarrassing food stamps, but through a debit card that looks just like any other debit or credit card.
Welfare assistance comes in many forms, including cash, food stamps, public housing, energy assistance, Medicaid, free school lunches and WIC, which is a food assistance program for women and their children. $700 billion is spent annually on welfare. This does not even include the cost of education or the use of emergency rooms by the uninsured. The cost to taxpayers this year for food assistance alone is $68 billion. Yet Obama wants to increase the amount spent on welfare by 42% over the amount spent in 2008 under President Bush.
Some efforts are being made to push back against the runaway spending. Rep. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee is tackling food stamp reform. He has asked the co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to find savings. Thirty-six states are considering drug testing for welfare recipients. The government of Washington, D.C. has begun enforcing a cutoff date for welfare check recipients. Michigan’s Department of Health Services recently tried to cut off cash assistance to certain welfare recipients who had been receiving it for more than five years. Unfortunately a liberal judge has temporarily blocked it.
It is true that many Americans have lost their jobs due to the recession. But the increase in welfare has gone up much faster than the unemployment rate. Americans must rid themselves of the entitlement mentality when it comes to jobs. No one is entitled to their first choice of employment. There are jobs available; Americans must quit thinking they are too good for them. It is better overall to be gainfully employed as a security guard or working at McDonald’s, than living off the government dole. Americans must also drop the entitlement mentality when it comes to food and materialism, and instead learn to live within their means. Cell phones, big-screen TVs, eating out frequently, and new cars are luxuries, not necessities.
Welfare is devastating for children. Long-term welfare dependency reduces a child’s intellect by one-third when compared with other similar children. In order to reduce the growing, unaffordable dependency that has crept up over the past few years, encouraged by our government, it must be impressed upon Americans how we are ruining our children. The Heritage Foundation came with a list of ways to lower the welfare rolls. They include providing welfare assistance as loans, not grants, encouraging marriage in low-income families, and limiting low-skill immigration. These kinds of solutions must be implemented, because eventually we will run out of producers to support the takers.
The author convieniently “forgets’ to call out the elderly and their demands to keep the SS & Medicare bennies rolling no matter the consequences.
My tagline is “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will hearld the end of the republic.” We have reached that point. Voters think its OK to vote themselves money out of their neighbor’s pocket. “Welfare” is the wrong word anymore. “Welfare” makes it sound like just the truly needy are getting money, as if a widow who just lost her husband is being put on the street with her kids. That isn’t true. Half the population gets their government handout. And if you talk to the recipients, they believe they are getting what they deserve. Our culture has changed radically since the 60s and perhaps even since the 1930s. People now expect some type of a handout and think its OK to tax the s___t out of the “rich” to get it.
What percent of anchor babies recieve assistance?
Welfare assistance comes in many forms, including cash, food stamps, public housing, energy assistance, Medicaid, free school lunches and WIC, which is a food assistance program for women and their children. $700 billion is spent annually on welfare. This does not even include the cost of education or the use of emergency rooms by the uninsured. The cost to taxpayers this year for food assistance alone is $68 billion. Yet Obama wants to increase the amount spent on welfare by 42% over the amount spent in 2008 under President Bush.”
Here on the East Coast I am seeing something different but equally as troublesome.
Immigrant Children come here legally with relatives got to college for ‘free’ in Maryland (and Dems raise my taxes every two years.) They usually have a green card, then get citizenship later. It is easy for anyone to get free college in Maryland if they have no money and their parents don't report an income, but the immigrants are the ones mainly taking advantage of it and then getting government (state, local, federal) related jobs.
What is troublesome is that they then feel loyalty to the big spending government as the great caring provider even though they have family here. I have talked to a number of them about this:
1) They believe in Obama type give-aways and Obama,
2) they are MORE sympathetic to illegals than they are to American minorities.
These folks have no clue about American history or how capitalist works (or is supposed to work.) They buy the 'fairness' line.
| ONLY INAMERICA.... The new breadwinner in the family...
This is preposterous! An emergency room physician told me that a woman in her late 20's came to the ER today with her 8thpregnancy.
She told the first doctor she saw: "My Mama told me that I am the breadwinner for the family." He asked her to explain. She said that she can make babies and babies get money from the State for the family. It goes like this:
The Grandma calls the Department of Child & Family Services, and states that the unemployed daughter is not capable of caring for all of her kids. DCFS agrees, and tells her the
children will need to go into foster care. The Grandma then volunteers to be the foster parent, and receives a check for $1500 per child each month inIllinois. Total yearly income:
$144,000 tax-free and nobody
has to go to work! In fact, they get more if there is
no husband/father/man in the home! Not to mention free healthcare (Medicaid), plus a monthly card entitling them to free groceries and a voucher for 250 free Obamaphone minutes each month. This does not include WIC and other welfare benefits...
Indeed, Grandma was correct that her fertile daughter is the "breadwinner" for the family.
This is how the liberal politicians spend our tax dollars. When this generous program was invented in the '60s, the Great Society architects forgot to craft an end date... and now we are hopelessly overrun with people who vote only for those who will continue to keep them on the dole.... No wonder our country is broke! Worse, the Muslims have been paying attention, and by mandating that each Muslim family have eleven children, they will soon replace the voting bloc above and can be running this country within 50 years.
Are we alarmed yet? Is anybody listening? Sincerely,
Sebastian J. Ciancio, M.D. Urologist,
Danville Polyclinic, LTD
Is this a GREAT COUNTRY or what...?
Don't forget to pay your taxes!!
There are a lot of “breadwinners”
depending on you! |
Back in the days when my wife and I were poor we simply didn’t eat as well as we do now. We still ate, and there was no need to have government assistance just so we could eat ribeye instead of hamburger.
From the Greatest Generation to the G’mint dependent Generation in a half a century. Big Government creating far more problems than it fixes.
BTTT.
I doubt it's their "good intentions". It's their way of maintaining their wealth and "we know better" plutarchy.
They import poverty, and expect the hoi polloi to pay for it, so they can feel good, while impoverishing most others, not to mention making life miserable for those that have to put up with the increasing number of bottom feeders and "artistic types" that do not subscribe to "middle class values".
Born, Collect, Stagnate. Anyone else read that SF story back in the early '70s?
The elites play up the good intentions while planning gulags.
I've got a good-paying white-collar job in the pharma industry, and we still eat hamburger. Something about having four kids, and one just starting college...
What's wrong is that we won the War On Poverty ... but, facing the loss of income & power, those waging that war redefined the enemy to increase their spending & profiteering.
Nothing wrong with hamburger!
Mike
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