Free Republic

Most Births Among Those Under 30 Are To Unwed Moms It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: More than half of births to U.S. women younger than 30 occur outside marriage. Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the past two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends,...

A new study finds more Americans than ever before are dependent on the federal government for financial assistance. The Heritage Foundation's "Index of Dependence on Government" also finds that the average American relying on federal government assistance receives $300 more in benefits ($32,748) annually than the average American's disposable personal income ($32,446). William Beach of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis puts that in context. "... We now have [about] 67 million Americans who are getting significant aid from the government for their housing or their food or their income support or their healthcare or their education -- or...

The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, released today, should be a wake-up call for America. Published by The Heritage Foundation for the past 10 years, the Index tracks the growth in government dependence dating back to the early 1960s. This year’s edition shows an alarming trend. Among the most troubling facts: One in five Americans—the highest in the nation’s history—relies on the federal government for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement assistance. That’s more than 67.3 million Americans who receive subsidies from Washington.Government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with...

Last year, a federal program paid out $1.6 billion to cover free cell phones and the monthly bills of 12.5 million wireless accounts. The program, overseen by the FCC and intended to help low-income Americans, is popular for obvious reasons, with participation rising steeply since 2008, when the government paid $772 million for phones and monthly bills. But observers complain that the program suffers from poor oversight, in which phones go to people who don't qualify, and hundreds of thousands of those who do qualify have more than one phone.

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank's annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that were "traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families." The increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show. The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an...

On a crisp, cold day last month, Inaya, an unemployed former Ikea manager, waited with about 100 people in a large, dingy hall at Credit Municipal de Paris to pawn a Gucci bag and some jewelry. Out of work for two years, Inaya, 35, sporting a tweed jacket and dark pants, was tapping the broker for cash for the first time as her unemployment benefits dwindled. "The structure of the French welfare state is such that you don't see acute poverty, but the model has reached its limit," said Philippe Chalmin, a professor at Universite Paris Dauphine. "It's clear France...

London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will ‘help’ older people move from their homes into ‘more suitable accommodation’. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a so-called ‘housing crisis’ as well as creating a system that will ‘permit access to various sources of wealth’ that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

Pelosi: 'I Don't Want To Pay For It...Surcharge' The Rich For Doctors Visits and Unemployment Benefits http://www.breitbart.tv/pelosi-on-unemployment-benefits-extension-id-rather-not-pay-for-it/

<p>After winning the Florida primary, GOP presidential nominee hopeful Mitt Romney explains to CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien that he is focused on a particular portion of the American population in his campaign. Romney says, "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich.... I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."</p>

I saw an article a little while ago that I believe said the state of Maine had more people on the dole than there were taxpayers. I have been trying to figure out how many of the 19,378,102 persons living in New York are pulling the cart verse riding. I have tried all sorts of searches and all sorts of sites but I can’t seem to get the numbers for my state (New York). I am sure these numbers were figured on the last census and I have searched the census site and can’t seem to get up to date...

You’ve played by the rules. Worked hard to put yourself through school. You’ve gotten a decent job and you pay your taxes. You’re faithfully paying down your mortgage and saving money in a 401(k) – all to secure your finances and your future. But now there are a lot more “takers” than “makers” in this country – and the impact is systemic and long-lasting. A prevalent new “moocher culture” is changing the character of this nation – that’s the core message of A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing, a new book by Charles J. Sykes,...

President Obama: I Want Second Term 'Badly' By DEVIN DWYER (@devindwyer) LAS VEGAS, Nev., Jan. 26, 2012 President Barack Obama today signaled an aggressive tact for his early re-election campaign, critiquing his Republican opponents by name and insisting he's ready to "fight with every fiber of my being" for a second term. "How much do you want it?" ABC News' Diane Sawyer asked Obama during an exclusive interview in Las Vegas. "Badly," the president said, "because I think the country needs it." "Whoever wins the Republican primary is going to be a standard bearer for a vision of the country...

It turns out Mitt Romney paid $6.2 million in taxes in the latest year between federal and local taxes and I say bravo for him that sounds fair as hell to me. Really, just think for a moment and ask yourself does anyone get $6.2 million a year in services from the government? This past weekend is a perfect example. A nature preserve sits right behind my house, which is great because it's like having a giant backyard with deer, foxes, and occasional eagles. I worry about those giant trees that lean toward the house in such an ominous way...

President Obama will use his election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday to define an activist role for government in promoting a prosperous and equitable society, hoping to draw a stark contrast between the parties in a time of deep economic uncertainty. ...Mr. Obama will call for changing the corporate and individual income-tax codes so the wealthy pay more, both to finance government investments and to alleviate the rise in income inequality in recent years. Republican presidential candidates have countered that government should get out of the way.

I have been engaged in a little high-low reading in the past several months, alternating one highbrow work (e.g., Outer Dark) with one less exalted work (e.g. Lonesome Dove). My most recent pairing was the short stories of Raymond Carver, which I had not read, and Stephen King’s The Stand, which I had read as a youngster and wanted to revisit to see whether it retained any of the fascination it had on first encounter. There is a great deal going on in these works, though a great deal less going on in Mr. Carver’s stories than in Mr. King’s....

"I believe what I've been presenting is the genuine conservatism our Founders envisioned. One that fosters the opportunity for all Americans to live as we are called to live, in selfless families that contribute to the general welfare, the common good." Posted by Jeff Emanuel (Diary) Despite strident opposition from supporters who maintain that Rick Santorum is a “true conservative” in the mold of – you guessed it – Ronald Reagan, the already huge mountain of evidence that he is, at heart, a ‘big-government conservative’ continues to grow. As Erick noted previously, in 2008 Santorum said: This whole idea of...

Personally and collectively, the Greeks don’t understand and can’t cope with what’s happening now, let alone what will happen next. The welfare state is being swiftly and deliberately dismantled without any time to set up replacements..... ....Having seen off their worthless leaders, Greeks may not know who the enemy is any more.

Welfare workers are constantly trying to figure out how to make their jobs effective, how to do something to actually combat poverty. Their jobs are very high-stress, so they often meet after work on Fridays, when happy hours encourage them to philosophize. If only the clients had to look for work -- no, they're already under such a requirement. If the government built more public housing so the slumlords didn't grab every increase in benefits -- no, that's been tried. If food stamps and cash assistance were combined into one check -- no, that resulted in a class action suit,...

A crowd of about 50 unemployed D.C. residents swarmed House Speaker John Boehner's Capitol Hill home Wednesday night. (WTOP Photo/Alicia Lozano) WASHINGTON -- "Jingle bells, Congress smells, Republicans laid an egg," sang a group of otherwise jubilant carolers outside House Speaker John Boehner's Capitol Hill home Wednesday night. The crowd of about 50 unemployed D.C. residents swarmed the quiet residential street, candles and lyrics in hand. "Oh what fun it would be if the sick could afford their meds," they bellowed. They also carried holiday themed signs that read "Boehner stole Christmas," "Boehner - jobs of Christmas present" and...

From time immemorial—from Etienne de la Boitie to David Hume to Ludwig von Mises—political analysts have noted that because the number of those in the ruling elite amounts to only a small fraction of the number in the ruled masses, every regime lives or dies in accordance with “public opinion.” Unless the mass of the people, no matter how objectively abused and plundered they may appear to be, believe that the existing rulers are legitimate, the masses will not tolerate the regime’s continuation in power. Nor need they tolerate it, because they greatly outnumber the

A wealthy chiropractor who has been in practice for more than 20 years and his wife were living in a $1.2million waterfront home while claiming almost $2,000-a-month welfare benefits and even food stamps, according to documents.

Today in Osawatomie, Kan., Barack Obama laid bare his progressive agenda, calling for more federal involvement in education, increased spending on infrastructure, an extension of the payroll tax cut and increased taxes on the rich. He even invoked Teddy “the Trustbuster” Roosevelt, who, if you’ll recall, became increasingly socialistic as the sun of his national stardom began to set. Not surprisingly, Obama was disingenuous in a few places — but just a few. At one point, he said he had already signed $1 trillion in spending cuts into law. Presumably, he was referring to the cuts included in the debt...

Last year a one year cut in the payroll taxes that working Americans pay to finance Social Security was enacted in the name of so-called economic “stimulus.” But, like the rest of the economic stimuli that have come from Washington over the last three years, the only thing that has been stimulated is the growing hole of national debt into which we sink deeper and deeper. But now, not without surprise, our president and his Democrat colleagues want to continue, and possibly expand, this payroll tax holiday despite its obvious failure. But wait a second. Failure is a matter of...

WASHINGTON -- We Americans fool ourselves if we ignore the parallels between Europe's problems and our own. It's reassuring to think them separate, and the fixation on the euro -- Europe's common currency -- buttresses that mindset. But Europe's turmoil is more than a currency crisis and was inevitable, in some form, even if the euro had never been created. It's ultimately a crisis of the welfare state, which has grown too large to be easily supported economically. People can't live with it -- and can't live without it. The American predicament is little different. Government expansion was one of...

One of the most disappointing things about the last three decades of American government are the opportunities that politicians have missed to set the country back on the path of prosperity and fiscal sanity. We’ve had a lot of opportunities, but fumbled the chance in the same type of skirmishing that went on in the Super Committee, which is the same type of skirmishing we got with the debt ceiling, which is the same type…you get the idea.   Now, in a form of poetic justice that shows that God has a sense of humor and a long memory, the GOP...

Germany saw one of its poorest debt sales on Wednesday in what was seen as a failed auction by many market participants amid fears the eurozone’s debt crisis is spreading all the way to Berlin. Marc Ostwald, at Monument, said “I cannot recall a worse auction ... If Germany can only manage this sort of participation, what hope for the rest. Yields are at completely the wrong level.” Mr Oswald said the bid-to-cover ratio was only 0.65 times as the German debt agency sold just €3.644bn of its new 10-year Bund of the €6bn targeted. The Bundesbank retained a massive...

MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. -- A local school district has removed chocolate milk from its menus, but students aren't giving up their sugary drink without a fight. The Tahoma School District has spent the past three years reworking its lunch menu to offer students healthier foods. It already did away with canned fruit, and now officials are taking chocolate milk off the menu.

The Wall Street Journal calls the economic implosion now taking place in Europe “a crisis of the welfare state.” The latest European nation to hit the wall is Italy, where national debt is 120 percent of GDP. That is, for every dollar their national economy produces, they owe $1.20. The Journal calls this a crisis of the welfare state because this Italian national debt well in excess of the ability of Italians to pay for these obligations is the direct result of excessive government spending. When the Republican presidential candidates were asked in the most recent debate if the United...

This is the way the euro ends — not with a bang but with bunga bunga. Not long ago, European leaders were insisting that Greece could and should stay on the euro while paying its debts in full. Now, with Italy falling off a cliff, it’s hard to see how the euro can survive at all. But what’s the meaning of the eurodebacle? As always happens when disaster strikes, there’s a rush by ideologues to claim that the disaster vindicates their views. So it’s time to start debunking. First things first: The attempt to create a common European currency was...

The financial death spiral of the US Federal Government has been caused by financially irresponsible politicians during the last 80 years. Their lack of stewardship has resulted in them charging us with a National Debt of 14.8 TRILLION dollars, which must be paid back, plus interest, to those who we borrowed the money from. We have indeed allowed these same politicians to cruelly burden our own grandchild with this horrific National Debt. We have no one to blame but ourselves for electing them in the first place, and not impeaching them when they failed to spend our money within our...

"If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society. I think the labour laws are outdated. The labour laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking. The incentive system, is totally out of whack."

"The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

"We are all Greeks" - so begins one of the best reports on the unsustainability of the status quo, and on what "the new world order" will look like, created by SocGen's Veronique Riches-Flores. Her overarching observation: "No one can claim immunity from a Greek-style spiral" because "Our economies are mature, with weak potential GDP, especially post the financial crisis" and due to that old standby which everyone chooses so conveniently to forget, yet which is the biggest threat to the world's "welfare-state" stability, in existence since 1860 and which has been responsible for not only the longest period of...

The European Union is considering a roughly 75 percent cut in funding for a program that helps feed 18 million of its poorest citizens. The cuts, set to take effect after New Year's, would come at a time of rising unemployment and consumer food prices in many parts of Europe, as well as overall economic turmoil on the continent. The looming cuts already have raised fears among people who rely heavily on the program. "We poor, small people, we cannot face up to this," said Rene Waltener, 41, who is unemployed and married with four children. "We sometimes have difficulties...

Herman Cain responded to the attacks by far left pro-Castro activist Harry Belafonte tonight on Hannity: "I left the plantation a long time ago."

The desperate search for an acceptable Republican Party presidential candidate continues. Republican leaders apparently are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who previously said no, to jump into the race. The GOP's frustration is palpable. Mitt Romney has been running for four years but generates little enthusiasm. Rick Perry was an instant front-runner before losing much of his support after unimpressive debate performances. Michelle Bachmann briefly streaked across the political firmament but now barely registers in the polls. Newt Gingrich committed political seppuku shortly after announcing his candidacy. Ron Paul's support is fervent but limited. However, the real Republican problem...

Families were more dependent on government programs than ever last year. Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008. The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years. (See a timeline on the...

"In this disturbing and brave exposé, a Pakistan-born baroness reveals how some of her countrymen have as many children as possible by several wives so as to milk our welfare system..."

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that only 11% favor a proposal for the federal government to provide every single American with a basic income grant, or enough money to enjoy a modest living regardless of whether they choose to work or not. Eighty-two percent (82%) oppose this idea. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A woman encouraged her husband to have sex with a 12-year-old girl so that she would get pregnant and they could claim extra cash benefits. Alicia Bouchard even sat and watched while her 26-year-old husband had sex with the underage girl at their Florida home.

Jobless single mum Janis, 48, said she was delighted because the council will now have to give her a bigger house.

The amorphous hacker group known as Anonymous made good Sunday on its threat to strike BART, breaching an agency website and releasing customers' personal information in retaliation for BART's decision to cut cellular phone service to prevent an antipolice protest in San Francisco. The hack attack sent BART scrambling to protect its websites, and it infuriated some riders whose information was leaked. It came as the hackers also called for a 5 p.m. protest today at BART's Civic Center Station, where a police officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man on July 3. BART, which ignited a debate about technology and...

Many commentators are on a mission to contextualise the riots that have swept parts of urban London and other British cities. ‘It’s very naive to look at these riots without the context’, says one journalist, who says the reason the violence kicked off in the London suburb of Tottenham is because ‘that area is getting 75% cuts [in public services]’. Others have said that the political context for the rioting is youth unemployment or working-class anger at David Cameron’s cuts agenda. ‘There is a context to London’s riots that can’t be ignored’, said a writer for the Guardian, and it...

CHARLOTTE — It was clear that Liza Jackson’s luck had changed when she drove her pearl-white Dodge sedan, the one with the huge pink plastic eyelashes over the headlights, into Pinebrook, an eight-year-old subdivision where residents tend to notice cars with huge pink eyelashes. “There goes the neighborhood,” one homeowner said when she heard that her potential new neighbor had a federal housing voucher known as a Section 8.

LONDON — “I came here to get my penny’s worth,” said a man who gave his name as Louis James, 19, a slightly built participant in the widening riots that have shaken London to its core. With a touch of guilt on Tuesday, Mr. James showed off what he described as a $195 designer sweater that he said he looted in Camden Town, a gentrified area of north London. ... In many ways, Mr. James’s circumstances are typical. He lives in a government-subsidized apartment in northern London and receives $125 in jobless benefits every two weeks, even though he says...

Pennsylvanians on public assistance now have a new ‘civil right’ — free cell phones. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to pay higher cell bills as a result. Recently, a federal government program called the Universal Service Fund came to the Keystone State and some residents are thrilled because it means they can enjoy 250 minutes a month and a handset for free, just because they don’t have the money to pay for it. Through Assurance Wireless and SafeLink from Tracfone Wireless these folks get to reach out and touch someone while the cost of their service is paid for...

The debt-ceiling brouhaha diverts attention from the most fundamental economic issue we face: Do we want a European-style welfare state? If we do, how in the world are we going to pay for it? Presidential candidate Barack Obama called for "hope and change," but he was deliberately vague on the "fundamental change" part. In speeches as president both at home and abroad, he appeared to reject American exceptionalism and intimated we have much to learn from Europe, especially its cradle-to-grave welfare state. Obama's juggernaut passage of universal health care, despite severe budget and employment problems and the loss of his...

While liberals are certain about the moral superiority of liberal policies, the truth is that those policies actually diminish a society’s moral character. Many individual liberals are fine people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people worse. Here are ten reasons: 1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and my neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have lived in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do...

Video: Govt Official Sends Sex Traffickers to Planned Parenthood Columbus, OH -- In a new video expose' uncovering fraud in the Medicaid system, a conservative activists shows an Ohio state official referring people claiming to sexually traffic a young woman to the Planned Parenthood abortion business. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/18/video-govt-official-sends-sex-traffickers-to-planned-parenthood/

From the best of intentions to bankruptcy and recriminationsThe intentions of Democrats are only the best. They want all of the old to have lavish retirements, all of the young to have scholarships, verse-penning cowboys to have festivals funded by government, and everyone to have access to all the best health care, at no cost to himself. In the face of a huge wave of debt swamping all western nations, this is the core of their argument: They want a fair society, and their critics do not; they want to help, and their opponents like to see people suffer; they...