Failure of the Welfare State

[NYcarbineer]

1


Again:
"only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility,"

So....conservatives were right....

The choice in November is clear.

You forget what else happened in the 1990's. We had a digital revolution and a tech boom that created millions of new jobs. That was before the big greedy corporations realized they could outsource those jobs to Pradip... errrr "Bobby" in India.

I personally would like nothing better than to see every able bodied American work for his or her keep. Unfortunately, the goal of business is to make as much money as possible, and that means loading down as few people as you can with as much work as possible.

Aren't the welfare reform policies of the nineties still in place? Wouldn't they still be working, if they were the solution?

 

[DaGoose]

Since 1979 the average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900, while that of the top 1% increased by over $700,000, as federal taxation became less progressive. From 1992-2007 the top 400 income earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%. In 2009, the average income of the top 1% was $960,000 with a minimum income of $343,927.

..... During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.

Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Since 1979 average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900,

- the top 1% increased by over $700,000,

- 66% of total income gains (2002 and 2007) went to the 1%


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2UppIdlTyQ]Occupy Everything! Do You Hear The People Sing - YouTube[/ame]

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.


"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

Kinda like the so-called tea party. It is a hypothetical, hypocritical construct created by the far Right to enamor the imagination that their mission is something like the struggle of the colonists.

 

[Old Rocks]

1. "News that the poverty rate has risen to 15.1
percent of Americans, the highest level in nearly
a decade, has set off a predictable round of calls
for increased government spending on social
welfare programs. Yet this year the federal
government will spend more than $668 billion on at
least 126 different programs to fight poverty.
And that does not even begin to count welfare
spending by state and local governments, which
adds $284 billion to that figure. In total, the
United States spends nearly $1 trillion every
year to fight poverty. That amounts to $20,610
for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per
poor family of three.

2. In fact, since
President Obama took office, federal welfare
spending has increased by 41 percent, more
than $193 billion per year. Despite this government largess, more than 46 million Americans continue to live in poverty. Despite nearly $15
trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon
Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, the
poverty rate is perilously close to where we began more than 40 years ago.


3. Throwing money at the problem has neither
reduced poverty nor made the poor self-sufficient.

4. Since 1964 the federal government spent roughly $12 trillion fighting
poverty, and state and local governments
added another $3 trillion. Yet the poverty
rate never fell below 10.5 percent and is now
at the highest level in nearly a decade.


5. ...federal welfare spending alone totals more than $14,848 for every poor man,
woman, and child in this country. For a typical poor family of three, that amounts to
more than $44,500. Combined with state and
local spending, government spends $20,610
for every poor person in America, or $61,830
per poor family of three. Given that the poverty line for that family is just $18,530, we
should have theoretically wiped out poverty
in America many times over.

6. . … the poverty rate has remained relatively constant since 1965, despite rising
welfare spending. In fact, the only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility, culminating in the passage
of national welfare reform (the Personal Responsibility and Work Responsibility Act of
1996).


7. The vast majority of current programs are focused
on making poverty more comfortable—giving poor people more food, better shelter,
health care, and so forth—rather than giving
people the tools that will help them escape
poverty. And we actually have a pretty solid
idea of the keys to getting out of and staying
out of poverty: (1) finish school; (2) do not
get pregnant outside marriage; and (3) get a
job, any job, and stick with it.

a. ...we can add one more important stepping stone on
the road out of poverty—savings and the accumulation of wealth.
... “for the vast majority of households,
the pathway out of poverty is not through
consumption, but through saving and accumulation.”
Michael Sherraden, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1991)."
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA694.pdf
Scribd


Again:
"only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility,"

So....conservatives were right....

The choice in November is clear.

Yes. Total rejection of the people that created this present economic debacle that has created those numbers. The GOP should be relegated to 10% or less of the House, and all Senators running on the GOP labeled turned out of office by the electorate.

The totality of the GOP's failures, from foreign adventures to destruction of the economy on the homefront is enough to turn the stomach of anybody that is honest. Now they want us to trust them with power once more.

Not only no, Hell No!!!

 

[Old Rocks]

Since 1979 the average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900, while that of the top 1% increased by over $700,000, as federal taxation became less progressive. From 1992-2007 the top 400 income earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%. In 2009, the average income of the top 1% was $960,000 with a minimum income of $343,927.

..... During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.

Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Since 1979 average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900,

- the top 1% increased by over $700,000,

- 66% of total income gains (2002 and 2007) went to the 1%


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2UppIdlTyQ]Occupy Everything! Do You Hear The People Sing - YouTube[/ame]

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.



"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

LOL So, the Rockefeller, Ford, Vanderbilt, Morgen, and many other families with five or more generations of wealth are not still controlling more wealth than the bottom 50% of the working people in this nation?

 

[PoliticalChic]

1


Again:
"only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility,"

So....conservatives were right....

The choice in November is clear.

You forget what else happened in the 1990's. We had a digital revolution and a tech boom that created millions of new jobs. That was before the big greedy corporations realized they could outsource those jobs to Pradip... errrr "Bobby" in India.

I personally would like nothing better than to see every able bodied American work for his or her keep. Unfortunately, the goal of business is to make as much money as possible, and that means loading down as few people as you can with as much work as possible.

“... After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life. … Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort.

In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it.”

President Calvin Coolidge
January 17, 1925
Given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors

 

[PoliticalChic]

How wide would the gap between Rich and Poor have to get before the conservative consensus would be, okay, that's good,

we're happy now...

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.



"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

Conservative consensus on economic policy:

(note that references to 'poor' and 'rich' here are used as relative terms, as in 'lower income' vs. 'higher income')

1. Cut food stamps - thus making the poor poorer.
2. Cut Medicaid - thus making the poor poorer.
3. Cut heat/energy assistance - thus making the poor poorer.
4. Weaken unions - thus making the poor poorer
5. Cut aid to students/education - thus making the poor poorer
6. Cut housing subsidies - thus making the poor poorer.
7. Oppose minimum wage increases - thus making the poor poorer.


...and...

8. Cut taxes for the wealthy, flatten tax system - thus making the rich richer (and, relatively speaking, the poor poorer)

that list will do for starters. So, to my original question:

How wide would the gap between Rich and Poor have to get before the conservative consensus would be, okay, that's good,

we're happy now...

"How wide would the gap between Rich and Poor...."

1. There is not a real group known as the rich...nor one known as the poor...
...merely a snapshot of a moment in time.


2. You, being one of either the 'covetous' or of the 'dim-witted' are mobilized by the Left...

3. 'The Declaration of Independence memorializes the proposition that all men are created equal. At the time, the ambiguity of the phrase allowed even slave holders to find it informing.

But, clearly, the document was understood at the time not to promise equality of condition- even to white male Americans! Equality, as an abstract, was modified by the American idea of reward according to achievement, and a reverence for private property.

But the concept has been modified with the growth of modern liberalism, and the ‘egalitarian’ impulse that fuels it. Here we witness the constant expansion into areas in which equality of sorts is seen as desirable and/or mandatory. The intuitive de Tocqueville actually remarked that Americans loved equality more than freedom!'
See Bork, "Slouching Toward Gomorrah," chapter four.


I've learned that expecting you to understand, much less learn from, history, is a fool's errand.

Carry on....literally.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1


Again:
"only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility,"

So....conservatives were right....

The choice in November is clear.

You forget what else happened in the 1990's. We had a digital revolution and a tech boom that created millions of new jobs. That was before the big greedy corporations realized they could outsource those jobs to Pradip... errrr "Bobby" in India.

I personally would like nothing better than to see every able bodied American work for his or her keep. Unfortunately, the goal of business is to make as much money as possible, and that means loading down as few people as you can with as much work as possible.

Aren't the welfare reform policies of the nineties still in place? Wouldn't they still be working, if they were the solution?

If comprehension were less of a problem for you, you would realize that the OP states that eligibility has been lowered by Obama.

 

[PoliticalChic]

- Since 1979 average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900,

- the top 1% increased by over $700,000,

- 66% of total income gains (2002 and 2007) went to the 1%[/b]


Occupy Everything! Do You Hear The People Sing - YouTube

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.


"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

Kinda like the so-called tea party. It is a hypothetical, hypocritical construct created by the far Right to enamor the imagination that their mission is something like the struggle of the colonists.

Not at all.

The Tea Party is a grass roots creation by multitudes of folks who see the problems that you fail to see.


The proof of the importance of the Tea Party is observable in the efforts of the Left to re-create their own version, i.e., the thugs of the OWS.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. "News that the poverty rate has risen to 15.1
percent of Americans, the highest level in nearly
a decade, has set off a predictable round of calls
for increased government spending on social
welfare programs. Yet this year the federal
government will spend more than $668 billion on at
least 126 different programs to fight poverty.
And that does not even begin to count welfare
spending by state and local governments, which
adds $284 billion to that figure. In total, the
United States spends nearly $1 trillion every
year to fight poverty. That amounts to $20,610
for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per
poor family of three.

2. In fact, since
President Obama took office, federal welfare
spending has increased by 41 percent, more
than $193 billion per year. Despite this government largess, more than 46 million Americans continue to live in poverty. Despite nearly $15
trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon
Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, the
poverty rate is perilously close to where we began more than 40 years ago.


3. Throwing money at the problem has neither
reduced poverty nor made the poor self-sufficient.

4. Since 1964 the federal government spent roughly $12 trillion fighting
poverty, and state and local governments
added another $3 trillion. Yet the poverty
rate never fell below 10.5 percent and is now
at the highest level in nearly a decade.


5. ...federal welfare spending alone totals more than $14,848 for every poor man,
woman, and child in this country. For a typical poor family of three, that amounts to
more than $44,500. Combined with state and
local spending, government spends $20,610
for every poor person in America, or $61,830
per poor family of three. Given that the poverty line for that family is just $18,530, we
should have theoretically wiped out poverty
in America many times over.

6. . … the poverty rate has remained relatively constant since 1965, despite rising
welfare spending. In fact, the only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility, culminating in the passage
of national welfare reform (the Personal Responsibility and Work Responsibility Act of
1996).


7. The vast majority of current programs are focused
on making poverty more comfortable—giving poor people more food, better shelter,
health care, and so forth—rather than giving
people the tools that will help them escape
poverty. And we actually have a pretty solid
idea of the keys to getting out of and staying
out of poverty: (1) finish school; (2) do not
get pregnant outside marriage; and (3) get a
job, any job, and stick with it.

a. ...we can add one more important stepping stone on
the road out of poverty—savings and the accumulation of wealth.
... “for the vast majority of households,
the pathway out of poverty is not through
consumption, but through saving and accumulation.”
Michael Sherraden, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1991)."
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA694.pdf
Scribd


Again:
"only appreciable decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of
state experimentation with tightening welfare eligibility,"

So....conservatives were right....

The choice in November is clear.

Yes. Total rejection of the people that created this present economic debacle that has created those numbers. The GOP should be relegated to 10% or less of the House, and all Senators running on the GOP labeled turned out of office by the electorate.

The totality of the GOP's failures, from foreign adventures to destruction of the economy on the homefront is enough to turn the stomach of anybody that is honest. Now they want us to trust them with power once more.

Not only no, Hell No!!!

1. "...the people that created this present economic debacle..."


You've proven countless times that learning and absorbing factual material is not your strong suit, but let's not allow your misstatement to go uncorrected.


The Left-wing philosophical doctrine of equality of material condition, of outcome, is the cause of the "present economic debacle."

This is oh-so-easy to prove.
FDR, the author of the 'second bill of rights,' began the avalanche by creating the GSE's, Fanny and Freddy.

Or...can you find the authorization for same in the Law of the Land, the Constitution?
Article 1, section 8 would be its home, if it had one.


The other than constitutional demands of modern Liberalism are the cause.
The free market is the solution.


Is there any hope you'll wise up?

2. "...totality of the GOP's failures, from foreign adventures..."

The most interventionist President in history was Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Besides taking his country into WWI, he employed American troops in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Panama.
See, Hayward, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents." chapter three.

 

[PoliticalChic]

- Since 1979 average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900,

- the top 1% increased by over $700,000,

- 66% of total income gains (2002 and 2007) went to the 1%[/b]


Occupy Everything! Do You Hear The People Sing - YouTube

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.



"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

LOL So, the Rockefeller, Ford, Vanderbilt, Morgen, and many other families with five or more generations of wealth are not still controlling more wealth than the bottom 50% of the working people in this nation?

Dunce, try to be conversant with the facts and definitions of the terminology.

The colloquial "1%" refers to earners.

It is an ephemeral construct as the group changes from moment to moment.

I've heard 'a fool and his money are soon parted.'
Which prompts me to ask, how did you and your money get together in the first place?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I've heard that Sandra Fluke is getting married....

.....shouldn't we find out with which Department of the Federal government she has her registry so we can all send her her desired presents?

 

[NYcarbineer]

While there certainly is a mathematical "1%," due to income mobility, there is no perpetual "1%" in the United States.

It is a hypothetical construct created by the far Left to enamor the imagination of the covetous and the dim-witted.



"More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell."
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com

Conservative consensus on economic policy:

(note that references to 'poor' and 'rich' here are used as relative terms, as in 'lower income' vs. 'higher income')

1. Cut food stamps - thus making the poor poorer.
2. Cut Medicaid - thus making the poor poorer.
3. Cut heat/energy assistance - thus making the poor poorer.
4. Weaken unions - thus making the poor poorer
5. Cut aid to students/education - thus making the poor poorer
6. Cut housing subsidies - thus making the poor poorer.
7. Oppose minimum wage increases - thus making the poor poorer.


...and...

8. Cut taxes for the wealthy, flatten tax system - thus making the rich richer (and, relatively speaking, the poor poorer)

that list will do for starters. So, to my original question:

How wide would the gap between Rich and Poor have to get before the conservative consensus would be, okay, that's good,

we're happy now...

"How wide would the gap between Rich and Poor...."

1. There is not a real group known as the rich...nor one known as the poor...
...merely a snapshot of a moment in time.


2. You, being one of either the 'covetous' or of the 'dim-witted' are mobilized by the Left...

3. 'The Declaration of Independence memorializes the proposition that all men are created equal. At the time, the ambiguity of the phrase allowed even slave holders to find it informing.

But, clearly, the document was understood at the time not to promise equality of condition- even to white male Americans! Equality, as an abstract, was modified by the American idea of reward according to achievement, and a reverence for private property.

But the concept has been modified with the growth of modern liberalism, and the ‘egalitarian’ impulse that fuels it. Here we witness the constant expansion into areas in which equality of sorts is seen as desirable and/or mandatory. The intuitive de Tocqueville actually remarked that Americans loved equality more than freedom!'
See Bork, "Slouching Toward Gomorrah," chapter four.


I've learned that expecting you to understand, much less learn from, history, is a fool's errand.

Carry on....literally.

Mitt Romney wants to cut his own taxes by somewhere around 200,000 a year. Is he rich now

Yes.

Will he be richER if that occurs.

Yes.

He wants to cut food stamps and Medicaid. Do the poor get food stamps and Medicaid?

Yes.

Will they be poorER if they get less of those?

Yes.

Do most conservatives support the above?

You tell me. I say, yes, of course they do.

The conservative economic agenda is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

There is no credible evidence to the contrary.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Since 1979 the average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900, while that of the top 1% increased by over $700,000, as federal taxation became less progressive. From 1992-2007 the top 400 income earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%. In 2009, the average income of the top 1% was $960,000 with a minimum income of $343,927.

..... During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.

Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Since 1979 average pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of households has decreased by $900,

- the top 1% increased by over $700,000,

- 66% of total income gains (2002 and 2007) went to the 1%


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2UppIdlTyQ]Occupy Everything! Do You Hear The People Sing - YouTube[/ame]

Oh.....did I mention that my fav garden is by Grainger....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KLBYOikF6U]Country Gardens - Grainger - YouTube[/ame]

 

[NYcarbineer]

You forget what else happened in the 1990's. We had a digital revolution and a tech boom that created millions of new jobs. That was before the big greedy corporations realized they could outsource those jobs to Pradip... errrr "Bobby" in India.

I personally would like nothing better than to see every able bodied American work for his or her keep. Unfortunately, the goal of business is to make as much money as possible, and that means loading down as few people as you can with as much work as possible.

Aren't the welfare reform policies of the nineties still in place? Wouldn't they still be working, if they were the solution?

If comprehension were less of a problem for you, you would realize that the OP states that eligibility has been lowered by Obama.

I already posted that the expansion of the food stamp program, by Obama,

actually LOWERED THE POVERTY RATE,

thus demolishing all of your idiotic premises.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Liberals/Dems/leftists support the welfare state because the promise of government entitlement payments allows them to buy votes; if the welfare state did not serve as a means to gain and retain political power, they would not give one hoot in hell about it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The conservative economic agenda is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

There is no credible evidence to this effect.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The conservative economic agenda is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

There is no credible evidence to this effect.

I posted the conservative agenda point by point.

Feel free to refute them point by point.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Liberals/Dems/leftists support the welfare state because the promise of government entitlement payments allows them to buy votes; if the welfare state did not serve as a means to gain and retain political power, they would not give one hoot in hell about it.

Romney is running on promises of another huge tax cut for upper income Americans and corporations. Is that buying votes?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Liberals/Dems/leftists support the welfare state because the promise of government entitlement payments allows them to buy votes; if the welfare state did not serve as a means to gain and retain political power, they would not give one hoot in hell about it.

Romney is running on promises of another huge tax cut for upper income Americans and corporations. Is that buying votes?

Wait...
Rather than even try to address/counter what I said, did you just offer a red herring in an attempt to obfuscate the point?
Yes, yes you did.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The conservative economic agenda is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

There is no credible evidence to this effect.

I posted the conservative agenda point by point.

You did? Where?
And where did you then show that said agenda is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer?