Conservatives have a point about the safety net and dependency

We spent 1 trillion dollars in welfare.
Enough to amount to over $30,000 for each recipient. Most of that went to bureaucrats who are the real recipients of the welfare state.

gwelf on December 10, 2012 at 9:50 AM

Kristof also says this:

while we need safety nets, the focus should be instead on creating opportunity — and, still more difficult, on creating an environment that leads people to seize opportunities.

So he’ll oppose tax hikes on small business currently being proposed by Democrats right? Or demand Obama open up public lands for energy use? Or oppose the horrible costs and regulatory burden ObamaCare imposes on small businesses?

gwelf on December 10, 2012 at 10:01 AM

got any charts to show that? I would be interested to see that and have that as ammunition.

astonerii on December 10, 2012 at 9:55 AM

I don’t have a chart that explicitly says this. But there is this:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-welfare-spending-chart-you-wont-want-to-see/

Basically, more is spent on welfare per family than the median family income. If most of that actually resulted in food, housing, and cash to recipients they would no longer be poor. Particularly if they had employment.

It could be that most of the money spent doesn’t actually go to overhead and administration – I believe it’s Heritage which has shown that the average poor person in America has a lot of amenities which one does not often associate with being poor and this might be part of the reason why.

Regardless, we’re giving help to vast swaths of people who don’t need it.

gwelf on December 10, 2012 at 10:09 AM