Posted on 08/08/2012 11:59:57 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new chart set to be released later today by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee details a startling statistic: "Over 100 Million People in U.S. Now Receiving Some Form Of Federal Welfare."
"The federal government administers nearly 80 different overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs," the Senate Budget Committee notes. However, the committee states, the figures used in the chart do not include those who are only benefiting from Social Security and/or Medicare.
Food stamps and Medicaid make up a large--and growing--chunk of the more than 100 million recipients. "Among the major means tested welfare programs, since 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011," says the Senate Budget Committee. "Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach $800 billion over the next decade."
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Absolutely!! Just look at the stunning success of Smoot-Hawley in preventing the Great Depression. Well, maybe not.
The fact remains that 25% of our people are unemployed, yet you walk into any wal-mart store and most of the goods are made in China. Why are we paying China to do what we have unemployed sitting around that could do for our selves?
When you look at the history of tariffs, our founding fathers started out with protective tariffs on the order of 15%. Since 1980 we've almost completely eliminated import tariffs, and our domestic manufacturing has paid the price in jobs.
Bipolar rates have increased over that same time frame.
Though I found it interesting that 7.7% of people taking anti-depressants convert to bi-polar.
I agree that it's arguable whether or not Smoot-Hawley worsened or lengthened the Great Depression. Any blame may certainly be unfair.
Smoot-Hawley, though, clearly didn't help to alleviate the Great Depression. After its passage in 1930, the depression continued unabated through the rest of the decade.
You're kidding, right? Imagine cattle @ feedlot being loaded for a one-way trip to the slaughterhouse. At what point do they realize it was all a set-up from the git-go? When the stunbolt gun is being lowered to their head?
On our human/national time frame, the system that is harvesting the assets of tax donkeys and other associated productive people was launched in 1913. It really was ingenious - how many people knew the eventual outcome and played the suckers for all they were worth?
There's a reason they don't teach this exponential curve in school. The sheer ussustainability would be so obvious even the most clueless would catch on to the con:
According to this Imports are now 16% of our GNP.
To be sure there will be retaliatory tariffs, and exports will be similarly affected. We need to select very carefully the industries we want returned to the U.S. and tariff those. That would include all military components and most high tech stuff that's not highly toxic.
We really ought to tie our tariffs to unemployment levels, so that they can automatically drop as unemployment goes down and automatically raise as unemployment goes up.
That 16% is understated. Chinese don’t even make minimum wage. That 16% may well be a 25-30% increase in the economy in the U.S. Some things would cost consumers more, but government entitlements would drop as employment rose. Government revenues would go up both due to the tariff and due to the greater employment.
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