I agree. However I find that far too often, especially from the talking heads over at FOX and other conservative media outlets that they do not make any attempt to break out SS and MC from welfare and the like. It's all just lumped together as if the guy collecting SS is the same as the welfare queen with nine kids. It's disingenuous at best. Totally misleading at worst. There's safety net, and then there's a whole different element who are leeching off the system.
Speaking of welfare, how come nobody has a problem with Paris Hilton living off government largesse? Just askin'
This is common wisdom, but of course it is nonsense. It comes closest to truth when the cost of a service is 100% minimum wage labor, but that is hardly ever the case.
Thank you, yes. But unemployment insurance is part of the 12% under social safety net. And SS Medicare/caide is not the thing typically railed against by the ignorant hysterical righties. It's those ***gers (their words), leeching off the system that gets them voting Republican. The 12%..... These programs include: the refundable portions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including SNAP (food stamps), school meals, low-income housing assistance, child care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 If one guesses a 7% fraud rate in the above, that's 1% of the total budget. When looked at like that, all the screaming and yelling about the "entitled class" and such seems kind of silly. Especially when in relation to defense spending.
This is one of those areas where there is some separation between myself and some of my friends on the right. If there welfare fraud? Yes! Should it be addressed? Absolutely! However, if we stopped every single person who is defrauding welfare, that would not compare to the damage done to our economy by corporate welfare and corporations scamming the system. Bottom line, it wasn't some welfare queen that destroyed the economy in 08. It wasn't some union worker making shitty cars over at GM. It was the corporations, specifically those in the financial industry, and the welfare check they received for doing the damage is unconscionable. The complete lack of any significant criminal legal action against them is criminal in and of itself. Not one f'n prosecution? Com'on! The S&L scam delivered thousands of criminal prosecutions and that was a pimple on the ass of what culminated in 2008. Where you and I may disagree, is that the Obama administration has failed miserably holding these people to account. Further, his high mined speeches about caring for the average American worker is nothing but empty rhetoric. I can't think of another elected offical who inspired so much hope in the beginning and delivered so little in actual substance.
When he placed so many of those who caused the collapse (with the exceptions of Volcker and Buffett) into positions as counselors as soon as he took office (and he ignored the advice of V and B), one didn't have to be psychic to see where all this was headed.
20/20 hindsight. One beauty of Obama derangement syndrome is that since he put Wall Streeters on his staff, that naturally caused the right to cast a critical eye on Wall Streeters. So the left has managed to get substantial numbers of righties on board with antagonism to plutocracy.