$953 billion to ensure another generation of donk voters with their snout in the trough.On March 16, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in the United States. He created large-scale national programs aimed at helping the poor and needy that consumed nearly 1.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The programs were meant to be temporary, short-term investments. Instead they have become permanent fixtures in government programming and spawned the creation of dozens more programs over the years. Today, spending on welfare programs (adjusted for inflation) is 13 times greater than it was in 1964.
It is clear that President Obama is intent on not only continuing the failed war on poverty but expanding and growing the size of the welfare state. President Obama’s 2011 budget will increase spending on welfare programs by 42 percent over President Bush’s last year in office. Total spending on the welfare state (including state spending) will rise to $953 billion in 2011.
Further, the Obama Administration is pursuing a change in the official “poverty measure” that will increase the number of people considered poor in America. If future program eligibility is tied to this measure, the amount of federal tax dollars flowing to programs aimed at helping the poor would dramatically increase.
5 million more reliable donk voters.The President’s 2011 budget requests that food stamps spending rise from $39 billion (already a record level) to $75 billion.[3] Obama’s 2011 budget also requests these expansions be made permanent. In addition, eligibility for this program was expanded in the infamous “stimulus” package. Within President Obama’s first year in office, food stamp rolls grew by over 5 million people—the single largest increase in a one-year period in over three decades.
Perhaps we should be less concerned about the war in Afghanistan and more concerned about THIS one that's been raging for 40 years and in which we have made virtually NO progress. It's time for the liberals in this country to wake up and realize that some people are just going to be poor. No amount of cajoling, handouts, education, freebies, or incentives will make them "un-poor".Unfortunately, only one of the 70 federal welfare programs, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, has work requirements for its recipients. The 69 others merely provide a basic need and allow families to stay on the welfare rolls indefinitely.
Congress should ask pointed questions about why the war on poverty continues to escalate more than four decades after it began. The Obama Administration’s expansion of the welfare state, in combination with its effort to define poverty up, does not bode well for economic freedom in the United States.
Imagine what we could do with $953 billion.
But what do we do? Do we stop taking care of our fellow Americans all together? Do we ignore our needy while we spend billions helping foreign countries before we help out own? There's got to be a line in the sand somewhere, there's got to be a better way to do this.
