[Rhodes22-list] What do you do with monsters?

[Wally Buck]

Thanks Eric, great post with facts to back it up! As I indicated in earlier 
post I thought welfare was reduced under Clinton despite Steve saying it 
wasn't so.

Wally


>From: eric.charles.newburger at census.gov
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] What do you do with monsters?
>Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 18:30:05 -0400
>
>
>So many of you have given thoughtful replies that I felt I should offer my
>own in support.  Besides, work's over for the day and now I have a few
>minutes....
>
>"Remember, this so called deficit
>could be eliminated in a couple years if we reduced
>walfare programs."
>
>       This is just wrong.  U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, in its
>annual report to congress, "Indicators of Welfare Dependance, 2003"
>reported that the Federal Government and 50 states, combined, spent only
>about $14.2 billion in 2000 on AFDC and TANF, the programs commonly
>referred to as welfare.  Compare that with Bush's one year deficit of $450
>billion or so.
>       Most of the social spending we do in this country is on social
>security payments, which are not entitlements at all, but rather, a
>government run retirement and, to a lessor extent, life insurance program.
>They go to everyone, and so they cost a lot.  We pay for it, too, with our
>SSA withholdings.
>       Welfare only goes to poor people, and there are relatively few of
>them in our society (though there are more now than before Bush took
>office--see the Census Bureau's last three Income and Poverty Reports).
>HHS also reports that only about 3% of Americans are 'dependent' upon
>welfare (that is, get half or more of their income from these programs).
>So, with so few mouths to feed, as it were, the bill is pretty small
>compared to other things.
>       By the way, those Clinton era figures for welfare are only about a
>third of what the Reagan era welfare bills were in constant dollars.
>Welfare reform in '96 really reduced the figures.  However, even at the $28
>to $29 billion annual level that typified the Reagan era, welfare would not
>then, nor will it now, ever begin to pay off Bush's tax cuts.
>
>
>"So called republican pork allow companies to produce
>goods or services with a higher profit margin.  The
>higher the profit margin, the more workers the
>companies will need to hire to produce more of the
>goods & services to maintain its market share."
>       This reasoning stems from what some economists call 'Supply Side'
>economics, or 'trickle down' economics, and what George Bush Sr. referred
>to as 'Voodoo economics' when he ran against Reagan.  It's the notion that
>giving money to poor people (welfare) is bad, but giving money to business
>owners is good, because it stimulates jobs.
>       The thing is, the economic stimulus from tax cuts for the rich, and
>sweetheart deals for businesses, only generate about 1/10th the growth that
>the supply side economists claim for them.  We've had a good 20 years to
>look at this in action.  It doesn't work the way proponents say.  You get a
>little bump, but most of that money goes into the pockets of the rich.
>That is, the rich accumulate wealth, and invest only a portion of it.  You
>see poor people getting poorer and rich people getting richer, which is of
>course exactly what the numbers show for the past three years (see those
>Census reports on poverty and income--they are quite clear).
>       More fundamentally, most business 'pork' subverts the competitive
>process so vital to our system--the contract goes to the business with the
>best connections, rather than the best product or service.  Quality erodes
>while prices rise, good companies fail, good people go down with them. It's
>ugly, and it's the reason that societies in which corruption becomes the
>norm don't do so well in the long run.
>
>Eric Newburger
>
>
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