Secretary Rebuffs Welfare Critique

Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 27 Oct 2012 | John Semmens

[John Semmens]

Revelations that the federal government spends over $60,000 per year per poverty household were labeled “misleading” by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“Just looking at this one number makes it appear like these poor families are receiving middle class incomes from the federal government,” Sebelius complained. “A more accurate figure would show that these families are receiving only about a third of that amount. The other $40,000 goes to cover the cost of administering the programs.”

While an “overhead” administrative cost of double the amount of benefits to the poor might seem a bit steep, Sebelius justified it as “a jobs program for people trained as social workers. If government doesn’t employ graduates with degrees in sociology who will? Or do we just let these talents go to waste?”

Sebelius also compared the $60,000 per household cost with “the much larger sums handed out to corporations under the ‘stimulus’ and ‘green energy’ programs. A lot of those recipients simply squandered the money they received on ill-conceived and inefficient products. At least our handouts enabled families to put food on their tables.”

if you missed any of this week's other semi-news posts you can find them at...

http://azconservative.org/2012/10/27/defense-secretary-justifies-inaction-in-benghazi-attack/

[Night Hides Not]

Dammit, you got me again!!! lol

[tx_eggman]

You are going to raise the blood pressure of your average reader by at least 20 points on both ends of the scale with this one.

Well played, John, very well played.

[WhatsItAllAbout]

The sad thing is, I can imagine this conversation taking place. {8>(

[Tublecane]

Jobs are worthless unless they’re productive. Yes, I would like social workers “talents” to go to waste. Or at least they could use them in their spare time away from real jobs.

By the way, though the statistic may be misleading in the way you mention, but your correction hardly makes it better.

[puppypusher]

I don’t know what’s worse.The idea that the Feds can bill $60.000 to the taxpayer or the fact that they can then steal back 60% from those same poor people.

[Mack the knife]

So ... it costs $40,000 to provide a “poor person” $20,000 in aid. Hasn’t anyone there ever heard of “process engineering”?

And these very same people complain that insurance companies spend $20 in administrative costs to pay insurance claims of $80.

This reminds me of the fact that there are as many people in the department of agriculture as there are actual farmers.

And the joke -—Ag guy is crying. Someone says, what is the matter? Answer: my farmer died.

[txrefugee]

“The other $40,000 goes to cover the cost of administering the programs.”

I knew it couldn’t be true because Nurse Ratched would never be that truthful.

The Poor ought to sue the HHS for absconding with 2/3 of their stash.

[JoeFromSidney]

I once went through the Statistical Abstract of the United States adding up every dollar listed for means-tested income transfer programs, but not counting those the recipient has "paid for," like Social Security or Medicare (yes, I love numbers). At that time it came to nearly $10,000 per person under the official poverty line. That was at least 20 years ago; I'm sure the numbers have gone up since then. I can't see that any of it has done anything to eliminate poverty.