Posted on 07/03/2014 11:57:08 PM PDT by quesney
Obamacare has pushed us over the entitlements tipping point. In 2011 some 49.2 percent of U.S. households received benefits from one or more government programs—about 151 million out of an estimated 306.8 million Americans—according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last October.
Currently, around 6 million to 7 million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare are receiving taxpayer-provided subsidies (though the administration’s numbers cannot be trusted, it’s all we have to work with). There are another 3 million who have signed up for Medicaid.
That means some 10 million Americans—or a total of about 161 million—are now getting government subsidies (though the final number might be somewhat lower since some may have been receiving benefits already).
Thus, perhaps 52 percent of U.S. households—more than half—now receive benefits from the government, thanks to President Obama. And Mr. Entitlement is just getting started. If Obamacare is not repealed millions more will join the swelling rolls of those dependent on government handouts.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Sure, I’m upset. I’m upset all day, every day, over the huge scam that is government, that continually seizes an ever larger portion of the citizen’s wealth. That’s why I’m a FReeper and and spend all my time reporting news on my personal newsblog, and working for conservative local candidates. But it is tiresome to get attacked by other conservatives who see the country’s fiscal problems primarily as a result of the “greedy geezer” lobby. Of course, that’s what the Obama crew wants, internecine warfare among conservatives. Sure, SS cannot continue as is without changes. But I resent the hell out of being singled out “because you probably don’t ‘need’ the money.” That’s pure Marxism: “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.” We paid money, just like government workers put up labor for payment. Why not ask them to take a pay cut? Or better yet, why not mass layoffs of the government deadhead class? Clean all that up, THEN we’ll talk SS reform.
Problem is, every group says “go after them instead” and puts up the same kind of resistance. And the numbers are simply massive. SS isn’t some minor line item. The red ink is in the trillions over the coming decade.
So no change will happen until it’s forced by a financial collapse, because most Americans no longer can see beyond their immediate needs to what’s necessary (and indeed unavoidable) for the country long-term.
What I’ve seen over the past decade or so - not just in the US but across the West - raises serious questions (including questions the Founders asked themselves) about whether democracy ever really works for long.
This was planned long ago. And now more are added to the list -federal workers have increased, EBT recipients have increased, SSDI recipients have increased, free lunch recipients have increased, welfare recipients have increased, Medicaid recipients have increased thx to Obamacare, and of course Obamacare subsidies recipients have increased.
That’s a big pool of people wanting the status quo unchanged
Yep, that’s why it wont be, until the system collapses under its own weight. Have to say I’m dismayed, but not surprised, by what I’ve read by some here by people making arguments that sound more like they come from Dems/libs, not Freepers - it just goes to show the Dems have won and we will not have any real choices in presidential elections besides Dems/RINOs/Republicat-Demublicans until the system collapses and resets.
Prepare accordingly.
If the bank stole the money in that account, would you expect everyone else opening new accounts to pay you?
Excellent comparison. And the answer, of course, will be what happened to bank accounts in Cyprus - confiscation.
“Any blanket condemnation or classification into just two camps, those who get no benefits (now) and those who do, is a gross oversimplification.”
We’re focused strictly on the budget issue - money in, money out.
People currently taking money out of the system are outnumbering people currently putting money into the system by a rapidly growing margin.
America will therefore never go back to small government or even fiscal responsibility - as the comments from Freepers themselves vividly demonstrate, the system will not be reformed. It will continue to expand, inflate and confiscate until it collapses and fails.
End of story. Enjoy your benefits.
DeTocqueville: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
At that point, it becomes a classic Marxist welfare system. "From each according to his means, to each according to his means." But then, so is the income tax, which is nothng more than theft of labor.
“...to each according to his *needs*.”
“The FSP sounds intriguing. But I have to stick to a conservative state - after escaping the idiocy of mexifornia, I refuse to live surrounded by liberals ever again.”
Depends on your definition of “conservative.” If you’re looking for a state that has no income tax, no sales tax, great gun laws, a fairly homogenous population, a very high ratio of legislators to legislated, and a tradition of leaving people the hell alone, you could do a lot worse than NH. Unfortunately, people tend to look at strictly the D versus R without digging a little deeper. I think I could tolerate a D governor of NH who has stuck to her pledge to not tolerate a sales or income tax a lot better than I could our former R governor who happily jacked up our taxes in VA while mouthing the conservative line.
While I’m not a libertarian and don’t play one on TV, I found myself in an odd quandary. Do I go along with the libertarians whom I agree with 75% of the time who have good plans and are executing them, or do I wait around for conservatives whom I agree with 95% of the time but have no plan other than heightened participation in a generally failed electoral system?
I don’t have another 50 years to dither.
Where my free helfcare at?
That's why I am optimistic about this country. When this huge generation of seniors evaporates, the wagon will become lighter for the workers who are pulling it.
obozo, or the next marxist president will buy the votes of the young by holding student “loan” debt over their heads. Mayhap he will magically forgive that debt when he needs their support. Taxpayers are already on the hook for these “loans”.
Federal authorities executed a search warrant at a devout Muslim family's sprawling, 5-acre property 40 miles north of Houston, Texas, where the Feds allegedly found cash, diamonds, pearls, weapons and phony passports hidden in attic rafters, in secret compartments throughout a cluster of trailers and outbuildings and even inside the buried drum of a clothes dryer at the Conroe property.
Irsan, his wife Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, and another daughter, were subsequently arrested on a variety of federal fraud charges and are in federal custody. A federal criminal complaint detailing the discoveries recounts a saga of nearly 20 years in which the 57-year-old naturalized Muslim citizen from Jordan, and his family, allegedly scammed taxpayer ....receiving food stamps, and disability //assistance checks, claiming “fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue symptoms,” and “affective disorders”....falsifying US government applications which hid their real estate holdings, vehicles, and cash deposits in US and foreign bank accounts.
The complaint also alleges Irsan was receiving taxpayer funds for a son not living in the US, and that he maintained several addresses on the property to facilitate various fraudulent schemes. He once disabled a safety feature on a saw then purposefully cut himself to receive a $75,000 settlement.
Prosecutors also revealed, in connection with social security fraud and credit card charges against Irsan, that they found more than 200 credit cards with various names and multiple variations of his own name throughout the Irwin Keel home. Arresting officers say they also found more than 40 similar credit cards in his wallet the morning he was arrested.
A federal criminal complaint detailing the discoveries recounts a saga of nearly 20 years in which the 57-year-old naturalized Muslim citizen from Jordan and his family allegedly scammed taxpayers while accumulating real estate holdings, vehicles, and secreting cash in U.S. and foreign bank accounts.
The complaint also alleges Irsan was receiving taxpayer funds for a son not living in the US (EITC refunds), maintained several addresses on the property to facilitate various schemes
He was certainly and industrious and entrepreneurial Muslim (as they like to think of themselves), just not quite in the way amnesty advocates like to claim.
Also found on the property was a makeshift gun range, which witnesses said “five or six Muslim families” frequently visited to fire AK-47s. Also found was information about Irsan’s attempts to get a silencer.
Nothing to do with Islam, of course.
Authorities are also re-examining a 1999 murder case---Irsan was not indicted after claiming self-defense in the shooting death of his son-in-law.
The rest of the scam ......while there have been no allegations of terrorist ties regarding the family’s alleged foreign bank accounts and suspicious wire transfers offshore, Irsan’s strict adherence to radical Islam may have been a motive in the alleged murders.
Each and every day, there are more than 10,000 Americans who turn 65 years of age. Each day, the wagon is getting heavier. Each day, it is becoming more burdensome for those who pull the wagon. Things can't go on like this too much longer. The seniors who can take care of themselves are going to have to get out of the wagon.
Eventually, the load will be lightened by the natural process we call death. We are experiencing a huge and growing glut of seniors, but in time their numbers will evaporate like water on a hot driveway. Hang in there.
P.s. Here is a cabin on 30 acres in Grafton NH.
http://www.trulia.com/property/3127574083-760-Kinsman-Rd-Grafton-NH-03240
Definitely roughing it. Be forewarned: In Grafton you’ll find yourself around a bunch of dangerous libertarians who hate sophisticated things like zoning, drug wars, and taxes. A real bunch of knuckle draggers. Be prepared for them to demand their right to leave you alone.
According to the projections, the population age 65 and older is expected to more than double between 2012 and 2060, from 43.1 million to 92.0 million. The older population would represent just over one in five U.S. residents by the end of the period, up from one in seven today. The increase in the number of the “oldest old” would be even more dramatic — those 85 and older are projected to more than triple from 5.9 million to 18.2 million, reaching 4.3 percent of the total population.
Baby boomers, defined as persons born between 1946 and 1964, number 76.4 million in 2012 and account for about one-quarter of the population. In 2060, when the youngest of them would be 96 years old, they are projected to number around 2.4 million and represent 0.6 percent of the total population.
The proportion of the population younger than 18 is expected to change little over the 2012-2060 period, decreasing from 23.5 percent to 21.2 percent.
In 2056, for the first time, the older population, age 65 and over, is projected to outnumber the young, age under 18.
Eventually, the load will be lightened by the natural process we call death. We are experiencing a huge and growing glut of seniors, but in time their numbers will evaporate like water on a hot driveway. Hang in there.
I don't know how old you are, but I will never see it.
If you don't like Romney, fine. I thought he ran a weak, gutless campaign myself, and likely would have been a weak, gutless president.
But your comments make no sense. Nobody ever called for "only opposing welfare to the poorest citizens". How can you make such a claim?
And if you don't think large swaths of the American public wouldn't rather sit on their arses than go out and find a job, then you are going to have to explain the record numbers of Americans leaving (or never entering) the work force and accepting government payouts instead.
Your reference to the freeloaders and their groceries in their new car puts the lie to everything else you've said.
I'm one of the older of the Baby Boomers. Fortunately, I should be able to stay out of the wagon. I know many SS/Medicare recipients who don't really need the help, but they take it anyway. Obviously, as this crisis worsens, many of them will be forced out of the wagon. However, there are also many, many seniors who will never be self-sufficient.
Your charts illustrate the problem. But, as indicated, I like to look beyond the crisis. Right now, we have a large and growing number of benefit-hungry Baby Boomer seniors who are going to be a real burden for awhile. After we're gone, though, this country is going to have a real opportunity to get back to having a small government.
“What I’ve seen over the past decade or so - not just in the US but across the West - raises serious questions (including questions the Founders asked themselves) about whether democracy ever really works for long.”
the discussion in this thread illustrates how the federal entitlement programs have enticed the middle class into dependency on government
however, it’s not going to matter.
people can argue: “i have a contract... i have a legal claim...” etc
but with unfunded liabilities for SS and medicare over $1 million PER TAXPAYER, the legal claims won’t matter
How do they afford no income or sales tax? What are property taxes (%)?
I had no idea a New England state wouldn’t be tax-heavy.
Sounds like they live to their motto.
Yeah, that commune living thing reminded me more of libertarians than peppers. I wouldn’t mind having my own homestead somewhat near them, to collaborate with. But I don’t want to be embroiled with them. Or anyone really. I am too independent for that.
Beautiful property. Definitely a Thoreau existence. I haveca bit more to spend than that, so am looking for some ‘luxury’ items. Running water. Electricity. LOL!
Looks like the taxes are at 2%, maybe a little more. Pretty good for no state or sales tax. I’ll research the tax burden there a bit.
However, I see libertarians as the lesser of evils - so would rather be around conservatives given the chance. Tennessee has all the things a conservative state should, plus people that can be counted on not to vote themselves tax increases. Religious people. Gun toting people. And weather than will work with a self-sufficient lifestyle, if necessary.
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