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

[Michael Meltzer]

That number sound low, I always heard more than the DOD budget, A quick search of google "welfare spending us" showed 435 to 450 
billion(for 2000), which sounds more like it. But here the kicker :-) I think it the welfare workers causing the problem. 450 
billion divided but 25 million on welfare = 17,400, if we just cut out the middle man(the workers) and send people a check(the 
republic way :-) and we would cure welfare and poverty in one year.

MJM

PS. ducking and running for cover.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <eric.charles.newburger at census.gov>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] What do you do with monsters?


>
> 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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