[aruanan]

Likely the administrative overhead is two times the $78 billion and is not counted in the program cost.

According to the CBO, the total cost of everything, including school lunch programs, was $78 billion. More interesting, though, is this:

>About 1/6 of all federal spending goes to 10 means-tested assistance programs:

--Medicaid,
--The low-income subsidy (LIS) for Part D of Medicare (the part of Medicare that provides prescription drug benefits),
-- The refundable portion of the earned income tax credit (EITC),
-- The refundable portion of the child tax credit (CTC),
-- Supplemental Security Income (SSI),
-- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
-- The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp program),
-- Child nutrition programs,
-- Housing assistance programs, and
-- The Federal Pell Grant Program.

All of these amounted to $558 billion in 2012. Total federal spending on these rose ten-fold since 1972. The part that rose the fastest and the most was medical care. You can bet that this increase will, compared to what Obamacare is going to do, look like a flat line.



Hey, just think how bad it would be if, over that same period of time, 53,000,000 people in the U.S. alone had not been aborted. I'm being sarcastic.

[aruanan]

Note that the two periods of greatest increase were marked by the election of Bill Clinton and Barry Obama (combined with total Democrat control of both houses of Congress).