Poverty  and  Dependency  in  America


This page is here to illustrate two things:  First, people who live in (what we call) poverty in America are fairly well off, compared to the poor in other countries.  Second, decades of government intervention has only made the problem worse.  Trillions of tax dollars have been spent fighting poverty, but instead of encouraging people to get jobs and get themselves out of a financial rut, the welfare system creates conditions favorable to pregnancy, childbirth and illegitimacy.  The "safety net" has become a hammock for the laziest people in our society.

This material came from akdart.com Please notice, if you will, that the cities which have the greatest difficulty with homeless bums and panhandlers are the cities where liberal politicians are in control.

New:  As mentioned above, trillions of dollars have been spent on Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty," but estimates vary.  At the bottom of this page, I have put together a table of estimates by various authors, excluding anonymous bloggers and one-time-only "letters to the editor" and the like.  The most widely accepted estimates seem to be somewhere between 5.0 and 5.4 trillion dollars, although other apparently credible estimates are much higher.

Federal, state and local governments spent a total of $411.4 billion on welfare programs in 2006.*

Related topic:  Head Start.


President Food Stamps.  We are spending $72 billion a year on food stamps.  If we spent half that money rebuilding our military, food stamp usage might be cut in half. ... You cannot build an economy on government handouts.  The Soviet Union tried and failed.

Obama Administration Blocks Reform of Food Stamp Fraud.  As a Bloomberg News commentary notes, large numbers of people who are not poor are getting food stamps, due to perverse incentives that encourage states to deliberately classify people as eligible in order to draw federal money to their state.  People are eligible in some states even if they are not poor at all, but merely received an "informational brochure" for welfare, or a tiny amount of state money that the state deliberately gave them that they didn't even need, in order to qualify them for food stamps.

Texas grocer gets prison over food stamp fraud.  [Parviz Sheikh] Rezaei in August pleaded guilty in the fraud investigation involving swapping card benefits from participants in the food stamp program for discounted amounts of cash.

11.5% unemployment.  I am not rooting against the economy.  I want Americans to succeed.  I simply know that Obamanomics is not working.  Perhaps that is the whole point.  Get enough people on the public dole eating potato chips bought by food stamps and going to the strip joints on TANF and you are pretty much guaranteed a Democratic Party majority.

Food Stamp Fraud Costing Taxpayers Billions.  According to fiscal year 2010 data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Maryland and Virginia distributed about $130 million in food stamps to individuals who were not eligible.  For every $100 in benefits, those two states doled out $6.11 and $5.04, respectively, to those not eligible.  The national average for that time was $3.05.  Inefficiency in the food stamp program spending is costing taxpayers billions.  Of the $64.7 billion spent on the program last year (a record high that is only slated to increase), an overall $2.5 billion was spent on improper food stamp payments.

Government fighting food stamp fraud.  [Scroll down]  It is also illegal to advertise the sale of SNAP or electronic benefits transfer debit cards on Facebook, Craigslist or other public places, Mr. Concannon said.  This policy change was sparked by incidents such as a Washington state woman telling her Facebook friends her SNAP card was for sale.  An undercover officer met the woman and gave her $100 for her card, which had $200 in benefits on it.  In another incident, a New Mexico woman put an ad on Craigslist to sell her $400 SNAP benefits for $200 cash.  "Half the price twice the food," she wrote before being contacted by a local TV station.  The ad was quickly removed.

House GOP seeks to bar the use of welfare funds at strip clubs.  House Republicans don't want Uncle Sam paying for any more lap dances.  A bill that GOP leaders are bringing to the House floor Wednesday would require states to prevent welfare recipients from accessing or spending their benefits at strip clubs, casinos and liquor stores.

Bill would block extra welfare benefits for additional babies.  New Hampshire taxpayers should not be paying for bad behavior, according to the prime sponsor of a bill that would cap the financial benefits of welfare recipients who have additional children while receiving state aid.

Is President Obama Creating A Nation Of Dependents?  This year, more than 46 million (15% of all Americans) will get food stamps.  That's 45% higher than when Obama took office, and twice as high as the average for the previous 40 years.  This surge was driven in part by the recession, but also because Obama boosted the benefit amount as part of his stimulus plan.

Obama Administration Offers $75,000 Grants to Sign Up More Food Stamp Recipients.  Over the last three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has skyrocketed by two-thirds and stands at a record-high 46 million citizens, or one out of every seven people in the United States.  Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise "effective strategies" to "increase program participation" among those who have yet to sign up.

Why the Welfare State Is Doomed to Fail:  A lot of money is being forcibly taken by the federal government from the pockets of those who worked hard to earn it and moved to those who have done nothing to deserve it yet feel entitled to it.  Why is the government allowed to do what private citizens are not allowed to?

Homeless Families in Illinois Walking a Hard Road.  When her public aid arrives without snags — a rarity, she said — she receives $674 in Social Security, $623 in cash assistance and $723 in food stamps each month, plus support from the federal Women, Infants and Children program.  The public support covers food and clothes, but it is not enough for a security deposit on an apartment.  Dealing with the red tape of public aid eats up her days.

The Editor says...
 The New York Times wants us to feel sorry for this freeloader who is only good at one thing:  reproduction.

Food stamp bills seek to restrict junk food.  Ronda Storms is a Republican state senator from Florida.  She is also a mom who buys the groceries for her family of four.  A few months ago, Storms, 46, started noticing that some fellow shoppers were using federal food stamp money to purchase a lot of unhealthful junk.  And it galled her — at a time when Florida was cutting Medicaid reimbursement rates, public school funding and jobs — that people were indulging in sugary, fatty, highly-processed treats on the public dime.  "If we're going to be cutting services across the board," she said, "then people can live without potato chips, without store-bought cookies, without their sodas."

Takers Taking Over.  Like the socialists who govern Greece, Obama's left-wing administration depends on the support of left-wing activists, unionized government workers, radicalized students, and welfare recipients.  All of these groups have been pressing for more government spending, and Obama has not disappointed them. ... Ominously, the percentage of takers, those who collect benefits and pay no federal income tax, now sits at 49%.  Anything beyond that and the country is lost forever.

The truly dismal state of the union.  Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as "low-income" or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.  Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent.  Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion.  In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps.  That's 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

Presidential nonsense:  Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics."  Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of "you're-on-your-own economics."  I'm guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — "you're-on-your-own economics" is that it's a system in which people are held responsible for their actions, that they take risks and must live with the results, that people can't force others to pay for their mistakes, and that they can't live at the expense of other people.

24 Stats To Crush Anyone Who Thinks America Has A Bright Economic Future.  [#21]  The number of Americans on food stamps continues to set new all-time records.  Just check out the following progression.... October 2008:  30.8 million Americans on food stamps
October 2009:  37.6 million Americans on food stamps
October 2010:  43.2 million Americans on food stamps
October 2011:  46.2 million Americans on food stamps

Internet Access Is Not a Human Right.  Over the past few years, courts and parliaments in countries like France and Estonia have pronounced Internet access a human right.  But that argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point:  technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself.  There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right.  Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience.

'Internet access not a human right,' says 'Father of the Internet'.  "Internet access is not a human right," wrote Vinton Cerf in an OpEd in the New York Times on Thursday.  Cerf is a prominent computer scientist who worked on the DARPA project that gave rise to the Internet, and is revered as the "Father of the Internet."  Cerf, who wrote the piece in response to the United Nation's drive towards declaring Internet access a human right, is Google's Chief Internet Evangelist.  He argued that "technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself."

Victimology and the Phony 'Digital Divide'.  The notion that black youths generally do not have internet access is a myth.  In fact, if liberals really cared about the experience of young blacks, they would know that 89% of black youths have a computer in their home and that 78% have internet access.  That is only 10% less than white youth's internet access, which is 88%.  Before you infer discrimination or disadvantage from that 10% disparity, consider something astonishing:  90% of black youths have cable/satellite TV in their homes, compared with 83% of whites.  Sixty-three percent of blacks have premium channels versus 43% of whites. ... Before we bemoan a lack of resources, we should consider how people are able to prioritize cable TV, even premium access, over internet access.

Is the Obama Administration Politically Manipulating the Poverty Data?  The Census Bureau's recently created "Supplemental Poverty Measure" (SPM) looks like a ruse to artificially show economic and poverty-reducing improvement in time for the 2012 presidential election.  Longer-term, it appears to be a rigged mechanism for demonstrating how ObamaCare, assuming it survives legal challenges and attempts at repeal, is a resounding success.  If I'm right, the press is doing a really good job of setting things up.

Nation's largest welfare state makes deep cuts.  Advocates of welfare reform in California often cite one, eye-popping statistic as they have pressed for cuts and changes to the program in recent years:  The state has one-eighth of the nation's population but one-third of all welfare recipients.

The Democratic Party's War on the Poor.  The day the American welfare system first made it more desirable to stay on relief than to move up to just the next notch upward — that was the day that the Democrats truly declared war on America's poor.  The right may not look like Santa Claus nearly as often as the left does, but the right is always the one with the best interests of the poor in mind.

A Different Kind of Hope and Change.  As America appears to edge ever closer to a disastrous economic tipping point — defined as the point at which the majority becomes dependent on the government — we find ourselves wondering if the downhill slide is inevitable and irreversible.

Obama's Kind of Immigrants.  Of course Obama wants illegal immigration.  Illegal immigrants will depend on the federal government for subsistence, if the federal government offers it.  That's the whole purpose of the Democratic Party in the first place:  To create dependents and enhance their own power.  But think about what this means.  The Democratic Party, and its standard bearer Obama, can only survive politically if millions of people depend on them for their livelihood:  Their food, their shelter, and what passes for medical care and education when run by the government.

They Mean Well. Really?  The war on poverty, that has so far cost $16 trillion, has beggared America while achieving results exactly contrary to those intended.  The lower-class black family has been all but destroyed, with 70 percent of children being raised in single-parent homes.  Millions of inner-city denizens have been sentenced to a lifetime of dependence and despondency, their self-respect demolished, their spirit crushed by the culture of handouts.  Meanwhile, the poverty level has not budged an inch.  If a racist enemy planned to destroy the black community, he couldn't come up with a more efficient strategy of achieving his objective.  Ah, but the deep thinkers who are responsible for this tragedy "meant well."

Obama's Poverty Politics.  [Scroll down]  Bill Clinton was prodded by a Republican House to reform welfare by imposing work requirements, time limits, and other measures that were geared towards helping those on welfare break free from depending on the government.  And it worked — millions of people left the welfare rolls and became productive and proud workers.  However, Barack Obama is all about "change," and he has been busy rolling back welfare reform.

Catch-22 on Poverty and Welfare.  The government's statistical sleight of hand when measuring poverty and inequality is no accident.  The Census Bureau's poverty report was created at the beginning of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in 1964.  Bureaucrats designed the poverty report as an advertising tool for expanding the welfare state.  To justify increased government spending, the report exaggerates poverty.  For nearly 50 years, the Census Bureau has ignored actual living conditions and seriously miscounted income.  Measuring poverty is the welfare state version of Three Card Monte.  The taxpayers (known in the trade as rubes or marks) fork up hundreds of billions to help the poor through anti-poverty programs.  But when it is time to count the poor, the money magically disappears.

Another Load of Trickle-Up Economics.  It's the return of Trickle-Up Economics, an article of nearly religious faith on the Left these days, despite the rather stunning volume of evidence that it doesn't work.  Cast a flurry of government dollars across the deserving poor, and their rush to spend Big Government's largesse will cause businesses to pop up all over the place and begin hiring.  Obviously liberals are in love with this fantasy, because it means Big Government gets to exercise ever-greater control over the private sector.  Taxpayer money is seized and spent, while liberals get to posture as the selfless champions of the little guy.  The fact that it doesn't work is a feature, not a bug, because it creates ever greater demand for that compassionate welfare spending.  Dependent constituencies are the lifeblood of collectivist politics.

Food Stamp Fraud: Take Home Pay Is Key For Some State Employees.  Why would highly paid state employees apply for emergency food stamp benefits when it would appear they would not qualify?  The reason, veteran state employees said, might be the rules of the game.  The Department of Social Services workers who processed the benefits were told that they should look at the applicant's self-declared take-home pay, not their gross pay, according to a worker directly involved in awarding benefits.

Fort Lauderdale to homeless: Here's a one-way bus ticket... don't come back.  The homeless of Fort Lauderdale are eligible for a one-in-a-lifetime gift from the city fathers:  A one-way bus ticket out of town.  The free seats, funded by $25,000 confiscated from criminals, are intended to reunite the Sunshine State homeless with their friends and families, city officials said.

Nation Reporter: 'Deep Racism' at the Heart of Food Stamp Reform.  With a record 46 million Americans now receiving food stamps and rampant abuse resulting in what the Wall Street Journal calls a "food stamp crime wave," Nation reporter Lizzie Ratner believes that "deep racism" is "at the heart of conservative food stamp critiques".

Rats in the Kitchen: A Parable.  Once, there was a man who had to deal with rats when he had a major infestation in his home.  The rats' normal environment became unable to support them all, and they began coming down from the hills looking for new digs... and decided they liked the man's house.  They were perfectly happy to hunker down in the attic, garage and basement with free access to the goodies in the kitchen and pantry.  And once they had moved in and saw what rich booty was to be had, they were determined to take over.

My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform.  I'm not against temporary aid helping those who truly need it.  What I saw at Wal-Mart, however, was not temporary aid.  I witnessed generations of families all relying on the state to buy food and other items.  I literally witnessed small children asking their mothers if they could borrow their EBT cards.  I once had a man show me his welfare card for an ID to buy alcohol.  The man was from Massachusetts. Governor Michael Dukakis' signature was on his welfare card.  Dukakis' last gubernatorial term ended in January of 1991.  I was born in June of 1991.  The man had been on welfare my entire life.

Man locked in cellar: I never saw my gov't checks.  A mentally disabled man says he didn't see his government benefit checks for 10 years after he began living with a woman who is now charged in a widespread fraud and abuse scheme.

Pols demand overhaul after EBT bust.  Beacon Hill Republicans are calling for a massive overhaul of the state's welfare system after a crew of alleged Lynn grifters was charged with scamming thousands from taxpayer-funded EBT cards — including some who allegedly took the public money as payment for crack. ... The latest example of alleged rampant abuse occurred in Lynn, [Massachusetts,] where authorities said four convenience stores let customers withdraw hundreds in cash while keeping half as a fee.

Poverty Doesn't Make Thieves — Liberalism Does.  During the Great Depression, levels of crime actually dropped.  During the 1920s, when life was free and easy, so was crime.  During the 1930s, when the entire American economy fell into a government-owned alligator moat, crime was nearly non-existent.  During the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was excellent, crime rose again.  In Britain, where the social safety net is more like a social swaddling cloth, crime rates other than murder are significantly higher than in the United States.

Connecticut State Employees Fraudulently Filed for Food Stamp Benefits.  The legal counsel of Governor Dannel Malloy (D-CT) has reported that "many" Connecticut state employees may be involved in food stamp fraud, and is urging heads of state departments to cooperate with investigators and prosecutors on both the state and federal levels.  During a rather abruptly organized press conference last Sunday, Gov. Malloy revealed that 800 of the 23,000 people who obtained federal disaster aid, following Tropical Storm Irene, were state employees, some of whom may actually qualify for the assistance.  Thus far, 24 state employees appear to have fraudulently qualified for the disaster aid.

Malnourished Muppets and the Indoctrination of America's Children.  After an extended interlude, America finally has another liberal buzz phrase to add to the country's politically correct vernacular:  "Food Insecurity."  Food Insecurity is right up there with "man-caused disaster," not to mention the long, ever-growing list of 'ities':  neutrality, inequality, inequity, accessibility and ethnocentricity.

The Ultimate Devastating Price of Government Dependency.  The devastating price of government dependency.  I witnessed it up close and personal in the late '50s, when I was a child.  Both of my mom's sisters had five kids each by various men who simply deposited their seed and moved on.  Thus, both of my aunts were totally dependent on government.  They lived in the projects. ... The atmosphere at my welfare-dependent cousins' home was strikingly different from mine — a subtle sadness which made me feel a little sorry for them.

The Welfare State Neutralizes Opponents by Making Them Dependent on Government.  As the ranks of those dependent on the welfare state continue to grow, the need for the rulers to pay attention to the ruled population diminishes.  The masters know full well that the sheep will not bolt the enclosure in which the shepherds are making it possible for them to survive.  Every person who becomes dependent on the state simultaneously becomes one less person who might act in some way to oppose the existing regime.

The 2010 Index of Dependence on Government.  The number of Americans who pay taxes continues to shrink — and the United States is close to the point at which half of the population will not pay taxes for government benefits they receive.  In 2009, 64.3 million Americans depended on the government (read: their fellow citizens) for their daily housing, food, and health care.  Starting in 2015, the Social Security program will not receive enough taxes to pay all the promised benefits — which will be hard for all job-holders, but devastating for roughly half the American workforce that has no other retirement program.

Seattle welfare recipient lives in million-dollar home.  A Seattle woman who is receiving welfare assistance from Washington state also happens to live in a waterfront house on Lake Washington worth more than a million dollars.  Federal agents raided the home this weekend but have not released the woman or her husband's name because they have not officially been charged with a crime.

Helping Low Income Earners Help Themselves.  "The minimum wage is a horrific example of the failure of politician's good intentions.  Several parties are proposing to further worsen unemployment by lifting the minimum wage up to $15.  The Maori party proposes a minimum wage of $16 an hour!  It doesn't take an over-optimistic Treasury forecaster to realise that this artificial wage level will price even more low skilled labour out of the market and trap more people on the benefit."

Food Stamp Frappuccinos.  In September came the report of Food Stamp Big Macs, Tacos, Pizzas And Fast Food Of Your Choosing, as the Obama administration OK'd using food stamps for purchases at fast food joints.  This came a month after the Obama administration vetoed plans by New York State to outlaw using food stamps to buy sodas.  That's right, the Obama administration demands that states continue to serve Food Stamp Sodas.  Why not?  Potato chips, popcorn and Cheetos® remain on the "food" list for food stamps.

Wealth Solves, Rather Than Creates, The Poverty Problem.  Class warfare is alive and healthy in elite parts of America today.  Yes, elite.  Only elites — a tiny fraction of a fraction of the American public — are able to camp in public parks denouncing businesses, while other elites in high government offices and the media discuss them.  The rest of us have to work.

'Someone's got to take responsibility'.  The victim culture of the United States has found its poster child.  The massive disconnect between behavior and consequences held as an article of faith by those who embrace victimology is epitomized by this mother of 15 (!) children.  She not only believes she has no responsibility herself, she manages to become indignant that others are not taking responsibility for them.  No civilization can survive an attitude like this becoming widespread.  Watch the video yourself and weep for our future.

Does Government Want People to Be Poor?  Street vending has been a path out of poverty for Americans.  And like other such paths (say, driving a taxi), this one is increasingly difficult to navigate.  Why?  Because entrenched interests don't like competition.  So they lobby their powerful friends to erect high hurdles to upstarts.  It's an old story.  Now, growing local governments are crushing street vendors.  The city of Atlanta, for example, has turned all street vending over to a monopoly contractor.  In feudalist fashion, all existing vendors were told they must work for the monopoly or not vend at all.

Lines Grow Long for Free School Meals, Thanks to Economy.  The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program.  Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.

What Has Barack Obama Wrought?  What the Obama administration has produced is not the social-democracy or socialism it might have meant to move the nation towards, but rather a state-employment dependency sector that now dominates the economic structure of the nation.  A nation in which 17 percent of the employed work force depends on direct government employment — state and national — or government contracts, and entitlements ranging from retirement to housing allowances, education loans, welfare programs, food stamps, and the like.

All I Needed To Know About Socialism I Learned In A Grocery Parking Lot.  The receipt was on the floor of an Angeli's County Market parking lot, located in the greater Denver area of Colorado. ... It speaks volumes about today's cavalier attitude toward "public assistance," what we used to call simply welfare — not only for the extravagances bought with other people's tax dollars, but for the sheer arrogance of allowing such a blatant illustration of inappropriateness to slip through a customer's fingers:  six cold-water lobsters, two porterhouse steaks, and five cases of Mountain Dew, the only purchases on the ticket, are shown paid for in food stamps.

Number on food stamps soars.  CalFresh, formerly the food stamp program, says that in September in Merced County, 51,343 people received CalFresh, a 70 percent increase since September 2006.  The average monthly CalFresh benefit is $146 a person.  In Merced County, 35,000 low-income adults are estimated to be food insecure.  That means that within the county, 40 percent of all adults with incomes of less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level (less than $36,000 a year for a family of three in 2009) struggle to afford adequate, nutritious food, CalFresh said in a news release.

The Editor says...
 Why is the line drawn at 200 percent of the poverty level?  Why not reserve this expensive program for those who really need it, like those below the poverty level?

Nancy Pelosi Wants A Federal Babysitting Service.  Buried in a Washington Post story about Herman Cain calling Nancy Pelosi, "Princess Nancy" is a new policy idea that Pelosi has been pitching recently during her short tour through California.  "One of the great pieces of unfinished business is high-quality child care; I wonder why we just can't do that," she recently said to a California audience.

Socialism's Fundamental Flaws:  Unsustainability is the fundamental flaw of Westernized socialism.  The origin of this flaw resides in the all-too-common human failing — the desire to get something for nothing — or at least not at one's own expense.  This proclivity is one to which politicians shamelessly pander.  Having government offer "free" entitlements lures people into repeatedly voting for politicians who promise to deliver ever more of such.

Trimming the welfare state.  Seventy-seven different federal government programs simultaneously attempt to address the needs of the poor.  The cost of these programs is climbing faster than Social Security, Medicare or defense.  The welfare issue hasn't been touched in over 15 years, so it's past time to streamline this overlapping and wasteful mess.

The New Welfare Swindle.  Ever since I moved to the inner city one thing has puzzled me more than any other, and that is how my low-income neighbors get by.  Assuming they aren't doing anything illegal, how do they afford their homes, their meals, their gadgets, their cars?  Few seem to work, even part time, for they are home in the morning when I leave for work, home if I stop by for lunch, and home when I return in the evening.  They can't work the graveyard shift, for they keep me up half the night with their raucous music.  I am left to conclude that they seldom, if ever work. ... The best I can figure is they make do with a patchwork of welfare programs.

Let's get real about poverty in America.  Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning.  Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more.  Two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.  Half have one or more computers.  Forty-two percent own their homes.  The average poor American has more living space than the typical nonpoor person in Sweden, France or the U.K. Ninety-six percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry during the year because they couldn't afford food.

Occupiers poach homeless services.  Occupy Boston has been encouraging protesters to take showers, hot meals and shelter meant for the homeless, prompting a St. Francis House manager to ask the downtown campers to remove directions from their Internet newspaper.  The online publication that calls itself "Occupy Boston Globe" posts meal times and shower hours at St. Francis House on Boylston Street, which runs on private donations and state and federal funding.

Extreme poverty isn't.  45 years after the War on Poverty began, poverty seems to be winning.  Or is it?  20 million Americans are said to now live in "extreme poverty," which is defined as living at less than half the federal poverty level.  For a family of 4, that would be $5,500 or less.  But are they living at that level?  Not really.  the government provides food, shelter and clothing — plus free health care — for the impoverished.  Food stamps — a supplemental to what people spend on food — max out at $668 for a family of 4.  That's $8,000 a year.  Add housing subsidies that keep the out-of-pocket rent to $137.50 or less (30% of income) and a $500-a-month apartment adds $4,370 to one's income.

Americans 'Hooked' on Government Benefits.  A record 49 percent of Americans live in a household where someone receives at least one type of government benefit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  And 63 percent of all federal spending this year will consist of checks written to individuals for which the government receives currently no services, the White House budget office estimates.  That's up from 46 percent in 1975 and 18 percent in 1940.

What is Poverty in the United States Today?  [Scroll down]  Mainstream news media also present poverty in America as severe material hardship. ... The ongoing use of examples of severe hardship in TV news should not be surprising.  TV news thrives on drama, and reporters naturally seek out the starkest and most sympathetic examples of poverty to build the most compelling stories.  By contrast, a realistic portrayal of the living conditions of the typical poor family in America would not make compelling viewing.  In fact, the audience would be unlikely to regard such a family as seriously deprived.

Some 15% of U.S. Uses Food Stamps.  Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in August, as the number of recipients hit 45.8 million.  Food stamp rolls have risen 8.1% in the past year, the Department of Agriculture reported, though the pace of growth has slowed from the depths of the recession.

Obama's Economic Record: The Worst Since Hoover.  The home ownership rate is the lowest since 1965.  The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty has seen a record increase on President Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.  And government dependency, defined as the percentage of persons receiving one or more federal benefit payments, is the highest in American history.

Does America Deserve Obama?  President Obama is a socialist and a vapid demagogue who has been educated beyond the level of his intelligence.  He is the choice of a puerile and spoiled electorate who want to be taken care of and obtain handouts from a parental figurehead.

Does America Deserve Obama?  Since the inception of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," we have had at least forty years of welfare programs designed to reduce poverty.  These programs have not worked.  The current U.S. poverty rate is the same as it was in the late 1960s.  So what do we do about it?  Instead of reversing course, we continue on the same path.

The United States Can't Afford Four More Years of President Obama.  Soon, people who pay no taxes and receive the lion's share of the benefits will be the majority in this country, and you can expect them to vote in their own self-interest.  They will support candidates like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid who promise to continue funding programs that funnel money to them and to tax the rich to pay the bills.  In the process, they will destroy this nation.  They're doing it now.  Our deficit and debt problems make that perfectly clear.  We may have reached the point of no return, and if Barack Obama is re-elected, the end of the United States as we know it may be in sight.

Expanding Federal Food Programs: Means-Tested Aid for Families with Children.  It is misleading to examine a few nutrition programs in isolation as if no other aid were given to low-income children.  This is particularly important since financial resources are fungible within each household. ... The federal government operates 71 different means-tested aid programs, providing cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and low-income families.  In FY 2011, government will spend around $475 billion on means-tested aid for families with children.  This amounts to over $30,000 for each low-income family with children.

Keeping Poor People Poor.  In Houston, a less restrictive city, regulatory costs add about $13,200 to the price of an average home.  In San Diego, a multitude of regulations add $240,000.  These cost-increasing regulations have essentially priced many low-income residents out of the market for a private home, forcing them to turn to public housing instead.

Freeing Entrepreneurs to Provide Essential Services for the Poor.  Poor Americans face difficulties accessing many services that most Americans take for granted, some of which are essential to their ability to work and live in a safe environment.  Such services include transportation, child care, security, housing and health care.  Federal, state and local government programs exist to meet these needs, but they are often costly and do a poor job of meeting the needs of low-income families.  However, private entrepreneurs — individuals, for-profit businesses and entrepreneurial charities — could supplement government efforts or provide better alternatives.  Unfortunately, a host of government regulations bar or limit these potential entrepreneurial efforts.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro Pushes Bill That Gives Free Diapers to the Poor.  An economic recovery bill authored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D.-Conn.) seeks to empower struggling families by directing the federal government to distribute free diapers through day care centers. ... Critics of the bill say it exemplifies the type of cradle-to-grave, nanny-state legislation supported by Democrat lawmakers that the government can't afford.

Limbaugh Takes on DeLauro Diaper Bill.  Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh ripped into a local Congresswoman's proposed diaper legislation on the air last week.  Earlier this month, DeLauro (D-3rd District) proposed an economic recovery bill that proposes that the federal government distribute free diapers through daycare centers.  It's called the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act — or DIAPER Act.  She cited the cost of diapers, $100 per month, as too much for some families.

Income Transfers Alone Won't Eradicate Poverty.  Almost all Americans already live far above subsistence poverty:  most because of their earnings, and the rest because of government transfer programs.  This decline in material poverty is obscured by weaknesses in how the official U.S. poverty measure counts income.  What is now called poverty is really "income inequality."  Reducing income inequality is also a vitally important social goal, but it cannot be accomplished through income transfers alone.

Obesity In America: The Potential Role Of Federal Nutrition Programs.  Today, as many as 70 percent of low-income adults are overweight, about 10 percent more than the nonpoor.  Adolescents from low-income families are twice as likely to be overweight (16 percent vs. 8 percent).  Racial disparities are even greater.  Almost 80 percent of African-American women, for example, are overweight — a third more than white women.  Even more serious, about 50 percent of African-American women are obese — two thirds more than white women.

SCHIP: No Child Left Off Welfare.  Originally budgeted at $40 billion over 10 years, the program is on track to be reauthorized at almost triple the cost — topping $58 billion over the next five years.  And that would be only a down payment, if some in Congress prevail.  Currently, SCHIP eligibility is targeted to help only those households at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line.  That's a $40,000 annual income for a family of four.  One bill now under consideration would double that cap — to 400 percent of poverty.  If approved, Uncle Sam would start paying the medical bills for kids whose folks earn as much as $82,600 a year (or more, for families larger than four).

America's Ever Expanding Welfare Empire.  There are 184 additional federal, means-tested welfare programs, most jointly financed and administered with the states.  In addition to Medicaid is the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  Also included is Food Stamps, now officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Nearly 42 million Americans were receiving food stamps in 2010, up by a third since November, 2008.  That is why President Obama's budget projects spending $75 billion on Food Stamps in 2011, double the $36 billion spent in 2008.  But that is not the only federal nutrition program for the needy.  There is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which targets assistance to pregnant women and mothers with small children.  There is the means tested School Breakfast Program and School Lunch Program.  There is the Summer Food Service Program for Children.  There are the lower income components of the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP).  Then there is the Nutrition Program for the Elderly.  All in all, literally cradle to grave service.

The government is not motivating people to work, it is only encouraging people to give birth.
 The Entitlement Leviathan in Numbers.  Here are some of the major mandatory expenditures that comprise the $615 billion in "Other Mandatory Spending:"
 •  SNAP (Food Stamps) - $78 billion
 •  Earned Income and Child Tax Credits - $77 billion
 •  Supplemental Security Income (SSI) - $53.4 billion
 •  Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) - $17 billion
 •  Child nutrition programs (school lunch and breakfast programs & other smaller ones) $17.6 billion
 •  Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) - $8.5 billion

Welfare Spendathon.  Even without the extra spending in the stimulus bill, means-tested welfare spending is already at a historic high and growing rapidly.  In 2008, federal, state, and local means-tested spending hit $679 billion per year.  Without any legislative expansions, given historic rates of growth in welfare programs, federal, state, and local means-tested welfare spending over the next decade will total $8.97 trillion.  The House stimulus bill adds another $787 billion to this total, yielding a 10-year total of $9.8 trillion.

State Gets $5 Mil Bonus For Food Stamp Sign Up.  In its quest to promote taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, the Obama Administration has actually rewarded one state with a $5 million bonus for its efficiency in adding food-stamp recipients to already bulging rolls.  It's part of the administration's campaign to eradicate "food insecure households" by improving access and increasing participation in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Incidentally, the program was recently changed to SNAP to eliminate the stigma that comes with a name like food stamps.

Midstate man pleads guilty in $4.6M food stamp fraud; could get probation.  A Wilkinson County man has pleaded guilty in what authorities said was the largest food stamp fraud investigation in Georgia's history.  Elbert Eugene Shinholster, the owner of Shinholster's Grocery and Meat Market in Irwinton, pleaded guilty to charges against him in U.S. District Court on Monday [10/24/2011].  Authorities said the food stamp fraud and money laundering charges involved a $4.6 million scam.

Three Former JFS Workers Accused Of Food Stamp Fraud.  Former Hamilton County Jobs and Family Services workers are accused of obtaining more than $100,000 in food stamps and other benefits for friends and relatives.  Deters said Savoy Walker, Jacqueline Ward and Tamikia Mosley obtained cash, food stamps and Medicaid benefits totaling about $130,000 for 12 people.  Those 12 people, as yet unnamed, are facing charges of receiving stolen property for accepting the benefits.

Oprah, Entitled America, and the Coming Reclamation of Our Nation.  My brother has been coaching little league football for over 25 years.  He has noticed a disturbing shift in the attitudes of more and more kids.  They think they are entitled, demanding maximum rewards for minimal effort.  Contributing greatly to America's new "gimme" mindset is President Obama, preaching his gospel of "spreading the wealth around," confirming blacks as victims of racial inequality, promoting entitlements, and demonizing achievers.  And when did a belief and faith in God become a bad thing in America?  God is so banned from the public square that any politician boldly proclaiming his or her faith is branded a religious zealot nutcase by the liberal media.

How Immigration and Multiculuralism Destroyed Detroit:  For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan.  I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity.  I watched entire city blocks burned out.  I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards.  Trash everywhere!  Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.  Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps!  With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and in once case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press...

Combatting Child Poverty.  Census data now show that a quarter of young children in America are mired in poverty.  The media won't report on — and the president won't lead on — its root cause:  an epidemic of illegitimacy.

The 'Hunger' Hoax.  Ironically, the one demonstrable nutritional difference between the poor and others is that low-income women tend to be overweight more often than others.  That may not seem like much to make a political issue, but politicians and the media have created hysteria over less.  The political left has turned obesity among low-income individuals into an argument that low-income people cannot afford nutritious food, and so have to resort to burgers and fries, pizzas and the like, which are more fattening and less healthful.  But this attempt to salvage something from the "hunger in America" hoax collapses like a house of cards when you stop and think about it.

Understanding Poverty in the U.S..  To the average American, the word "poverty" implies significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter and clothing.  Activists reinforce this view, characteristically declaring that to be poor in America means being "unable to obtain the basic material necessities of life."  The old-stream news media traditionally amplify this idea:  Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden waiting to eat in soup kitchens.  But the actual living conditions of most of America's poor — that is, the poor as defined by the Census Bureau — differ greatly from these images ...

Moocher Index
Go west, but not too far west, to find self-reliance.  The graph [in this article] was plotted by Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell from data assembled by the Center for Immigration Studies.  The horizontal axis represents the percentage of non-poor residents of each state signed up for government assistance — in other words, income redistribution programs.  Mitchell calls the measure the Moocher Index. ... Allow me to provide a few observations to assist you in seeing some staggering messages.
[#1]  6 of the top 10 (in fact, 4 of the top 5) states with the most moochers are in the Northeast.
[#2]  11 of the top 30 mooching states are on the East Coast.
[#3]  Fully half of the top 20 mooching states are on either the East of West Coasts.
[#4]  Half of the ten states with the lowest percentage of moochers are in the West, but not the West Coast.

Strange Facts about America's 'Poor'.  Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning.  By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.  Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.  Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.  Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.  Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.  Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.  More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.  Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.  A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.  One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo.

These people want unlimited, perpetual welfare checks.
 Welfare recipients file class-action lawsuit over benefits limit.  Several welfare recipients filed a class-action lawsuit Friday [9/28/2011] in federal court to block a stricter, four-year lifetime limit on benefits from taking effect Saturday.

Obama's 'Hate the Rich' Campaign.  It angers me that Obama and his minions in the liberal media have put achievers, risk-takers, on the defensive.  It angers me that Obama's followers think that they are entitled to the fruit of someone else's labor.  Americans are extremely generous and willing to help people in need, domestic and foreign.  But no one is entitled to share in the bounty resulting from someone's risk, blood, sweat, and tears.  Any government which confiscates and redistributes wealth is immoral and evil.

Is America Ready for a Christian President?  For anyone with eyes to see, there is a moral movement now spontaneously arising in America to fight the injustice of the authoritarian welfare state.  The enthusiastic Christian churches, the Tea Party ladies, the conservative movement, and at least half of the Republican presidential candidates are part of it.

Maybe this is why socialists hate the Boy Scouts:
 Depending on the Government.  We are dependent on government, in scarier ways than Obamacare.  We haven't learned from the generations before us how to garden, and many city ordinances wouldn't let us grow our own food anyway.  We don't know how to build or craft many of our necessities.

Quit Coddling Everybody.  Everyone should pull their own weight.  And anyone who does not should feel horrible about leeching off this great society.  Instead, however, Washington has encouraged this belief that government is the answer to all our problems.

Census: US poverty rate swells to nearly 1 in 6.  The ranks of America's poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work.

Ben Franklin Skewers Obama's Jobs Proposal.  Ben Franklin's essay, "On the Price of Corn and the Management of the Poor," directly responds to President Obama's jobs proposals:
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.  I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.  In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer.  And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Barack Obama has formed his entire platform of social justice on the very opposite principle.

Asians buck the trend as poverty rises in US.  According to a Census Bureau report issued Tuesday [9/13/2011], 46.2 million Americans, nearly one in six, were living in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years.  In the case of Asians poverty levels remained at 12.1 percent.  Poverty among Hispanics increased to 26.6 percent; among blacks it rose to 27.4 percent; among whites it climbed to 9.9 percent.

Obama's poverty problem.  America is a poorer country under President Obama.  Since last year, the ranks of America's least well off grew by 2.5 million, according to the government definition of poverty, which includes a family with income of less than $22,314 a year or an individual making less than $11,139.  One-sixth of the country, 46.2 million, met this standard, according to figures released Tuesday.  That's the highest total since the Census Bureau began keeping track a half-century ago.

The Great Obama Welfare State.  As it stands now, Obama appears headed toward an economic legacy that may very well surpass Jimmy Carter in its level of failure.  We have seen under this president an expanding number of citizens who are partially or wholly dependent on the government for their very livelihood, as the data show that the U.S. has become an ever-growing welfare state under Obama.

Turning a safety net into a hammock.  The purpose of welfare is to assist individuals in need and ultimately to help welfare recipients out of poverty and make them self-sufficient.  Medicare was originally designed in 1965 as a Great Society health insurance program for all Americans age 65 and older and for the permanent physically disabled, funded by payroll taxes.  Medicaid is the means tested health program created in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty for people with low incomes and resources, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and managed by the states.  These social insurance programs have expanded well beyond their original intents, and the unintended consequences has been to grow dependence on government support, instead of a return to self sufficiency.

Top 10 records set by President Obama.  Among the highlights is the fact that President Obama set a record in the number of people receiving federal welfare in one form or another:  47%.  That's roughly 150 million people.  E Pluribus Own'em.  We also have the lowest percentage in the modern era of taxpayers who actually pay federal income taxes.

More restaurants are targeting customers who use food stamps.  The number of businesses approved to accept food stamps grew by a third from 2005 to 2010, U.S. Department of Agriculture records show, as vendors from convenience and dollar discount stores to gas stations and pharmacies increasingly joined the growing entitlement program.  Now, restaurants, which typically have not participated in the program, are lobbying for a piece of the action.

Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American.  Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?  Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians.  Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.  Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.  It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

Ratio Of Takers To Givers Reaches A Tipping Point.  In America, nearly half of wage earners pay not one single dime in federal income taxes.  Many of them trudge down to the local polling place or vote via absentee ballot — and vote themselves a raise.

The War on Liberal Contradictions.  If one wants more government, the quickest way to such an end is to create a "crisis" that only government can solve.  After all, there is no way that we can fight obesity and hunger without the government, right?  Evidently not, because, again according to the ABC report, "a shocking 49 percent of all babies born in the U.S. are born to families receiving food supplements from the WIC program," which is operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  To qualify for WIC, women, or families, with children under 5 must have a household income that is less than 185% of the federal poverty guidelines.  Why not 175% or 150%?  What government bean-counter decided that 185% was the magic number?

Are We Fat Or Are We Starving?  Whose idea was it to give out food stamps instead of food?  Whose idea was it to then give recipients ATM cards to alleviate embarrassment at the supermarkets?  If we are so concerned with obesity why should food stamps purchase junk food?  How is it possible for local groceries and bodegas to accept food stamps for beer and cigarettes?

USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable?  Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population.  That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses.  At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010...

Obama Baits the Dependency Trap.  An [Obama] administration program will expand free school meal coverage to millions of young people who are not even supposed to be eligible. ... Here's how the program works:  if 40% of students at a school qualify for public assistance, then every student in the school will get free food.  That's free breakfast, lunch, and a snack.  If that sounds like arbitrary welfare waste, it is.  Sixty percent of the student body could be above the poverty line, ineligible for welfare, or even upper-class — it doesn't matter.  Every student magically becomes entitled.

Food stamp 'water dumping' scam continues.  The USDA has taken a stand on water dumping — buying beverages with food stamps, dumping the liquid and returning the empties for cash — and in June proposed a new rule that could disqualify recipients who engage in the practice.

Give Me a Flatscreen TV, or Give Me Anarchy!  As it is with any system on the verge of collapse, decent people are beginning to understand that the welfare state's central premise is a lie:  the overwhelming majority of those receiving government assistance are not "transitioning" towards a better life.  Anything resembling quid pro quo has long been removed from the equation.  Getting something for almost nothing, the lone exception being an unspoken requirement that one not bite that hand that feeds you, reveals what the welfare state has become:  institutionally-sanctioned extortion paid by the givers to the takers — in exchange for societal peace.

Police: Soda bought with food stamp card for can deposit.  A St. Joseph, Michigan teen allegedly bought soft drinks with food stamp money and planned to return the empty cans for cash.  But it's unclear whether his actions were illegal.

Federal Officials Reject City's Plan to Ban Food Stamps for Soda.  Federal officials on Friday [8/19/2011] rejected Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to bar New York City's food stamp users from buying soda and other sugary drinks with their benefits.  In October, the city proposed a two-year experiment to see if the prohibition would reduce obesity among people who buy their groceries with food stamps.  But in a letter Friday, an administrator of the food stamp program in Washington said the city's proposed experiment would have been "too large and complex" to implement and evaluate.

The Editor says...
 That is a decision that should be left up to the 50 states, according to the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  My advice to Mayor Bloomberg:  Don't wait for permission.  Implement the program anyway.

Cell Phones for the Poor on the Taxpayers' Dime.  The federal government is now busy working with telecommunications companies to make sure everyone enjoys the comfort of cell phone ownership — even if they can't afford it. ... Does the federal government, in partnering with companies like Assurance Wireless, see owning a cell phone as a right?

Liberals and Magical Math.  Nancy Pelosi has made what could quite possibly be the most imbecilic utterances ... regarding job creation and stimulating the economy:
 •  Unemployment benefits "injects demand into the economy."
 •  Unemployment benefits "is a job creator."
 •  "Unemployment insurance, the economists tell us, return $2 for every $1 that is put out there for unemployment insurance."
 •  It creates jobs to help reduce the deficit.
 •  "This is one of the biggest stimuluses to our economy.  Economists will tell you this money is spent quickly.  It injects demand into the economy, and is job creating."
 •  Unemployment insurance "creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name because, again, it is money that is needed for families to survive, and it is spent.  So it has a double benefit.  It helps those who have lost their jobs, but it also is a job creator."
 •  "It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance.  The biggest bang for the buck."

We should all use food stamps.  That would solve everything!
 Obama Agriculture Secretary: Food Stamps Create Jobs.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack repeated the White House claim that food stamps and other forms of government welfare are stimulus programs in disguise, stating that when government gives out money, it is creating jobs.

Obama Ag Secretary Vilsack: Food Stamps Are A Stimulus.  Obama's Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack:  "Well, obviously, it's putting people to work. ... I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the foot stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus.  Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity.  If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it.  All of those are jobs.  It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times."

Anticipating the Coming Convulsions as the Welfare State Dies.  It's already happening — the liberal dream of a perpetual social welfare state where deadbeat liberal constituencies feed off of the work of productive conservative citizens in perpetuity is dying.  There's no doubt about that; the only question left is how long and hard the process will be as the hideous leviathan the utopian liberal establishment has created convulses and dies.  It's going to die hard.  And ugly.

The poor are not poor because the rich are rich.  The formula for more black wealth:  less government, more ownership and initiative.

This is where "negative income tax" comes from.
 Reaganomics Vs. Obamanomics.  Newt Gingrich's Contract with America adopted a child tax credit of $500 per child that reduced the tax liabilities of lower income people by a higher percentage than for higher income people.  President Bush doubled that credit to $1,000 per child, and made it refundable so that low-income people who do not even pay $1,000 in federal income taxes could still get the full credit.

Thank a liberal for creating a legion of rioting dependents.
 Rise of the goons.  Societies, especially America's, have created a shattered social system in which lawlessness and irresponsibility are excused by boneheaded liberals because they don't think government has provided enough for these supposedly disadvantaged and downtrodden people.  The shiftless, looting goons and their liberal allies think rich people should be taxed more, and more economic advantages must be provided to largely uneducated, unskilled, lazy, incompetent goons.

America's Ever Expanding Welfare Empire.  America's welfare state is not a principality.  It is a vast empire bigger than the entire budgets of almost every other country in the world.  Just one program, Medicaid, cost the federal government $275 billion in 2010, which is slated to rise to $451 billion by 2018.  Counting state Medicaid expenditures, this one program cost taxpayers $425 billion in 2010, soaring to $800 billion by 2018.  Under Obamacare, 85 million Americans will soon be on Medicaid, growing to nearly 100 million by 2021, according to the CBO.

Gov't Welfare Widens The Wealth Gap.  Starting in 1964, when President Johnson launched the War on Poverty, a well-intentioned crusade to end poverty, the U.S. has spent an estimated $16 trillion trying to help the less well-off.  LBJ and other well-meaning Democratic politicians at the time also hoped that the burgeoning welfare state would make people more self-sufficient, a noble goal.  It didn't work.  Today, some 44 million Americans are on food stamps.  In 2007, it was 26 million.  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently boasted that U.S. issues more than 80 million checks a month.  But while the U.S. has more than 70 means-tested welfare programs, the poverty rate today is higher than it was in the late 1960s.

Food stamp use rises to record 45.8 million.  Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.  The number of Americans using the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — more commonly referred to as food stamps — shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported.  That's up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.

County food stamp program comes under scrutiny.  Caroll Wood said she wants to see a better explanation provided in the county's monthly Food and Nutrition Service report on how food stamp benefits are distributed through illegal immigrants.  Wood serves on the county DSS Board.  She met with her fellow board members on Tuesday [7/26/2011] and questioned why non-qualified alien heads of households were included in the monthly food stamp recipient household report.  From April through June, 874 illegal immigrants who are heads of households in Alamance County received food stamp electronic benefit transfer cards monthly.

Among the Tax-takers.  Like most anti-poverty programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit when enacted in 1975 was supposed to be temporary.  It was visualized as a tool to lift the working poor out of poverty.  It was quickly made permanent and has been modified numerous times over the ensuing 36 years.  In 2004, 20 million families received $36 billion.  The flower children assume that was $36 billion spent on food, shelter, and health care.  We who live in the real world know it was spent on big-screen television sets, 22-inch chrome wheels, and colorful tattoos.

Plugged-In Poverty.  The typical news story about poverty features a homeless family with kids sleeping in the back of a minivan.  But government data show that only one in 70 poor persons are homeless.  Another common media image of poverty is a despondent family living in a dilapidated mobile home.  But only a tenth of the poor live in trailers; the rest live in houses or apartments, many of which are in good repair.  The poor are rarely overcrowded.  In fact, the average poor American has more living space than the average non-poor European.

Obama Redefining 'Poverty'.  What does it mean to be poor in America today?  For typical "poor" households — as defined by the government — it means cable television, two color television sets, and two or more cars.  As for housing, it means living in air-conditioned comfort — in decent accommodations with even more space than "average" Europeans have.  (Not poor Europeans, to be sure, but "average" Europeans.)  Moreover, most "poor" Americans get the medical care they need, and they eat enough — in fact, they eat too much.

The 70-Million-Check Constituency.  Obama and the left have a massive constituency of tens of millions who do not comprehend the true meaning of money, only caring that the government check is in the mail.

Big Government Means Small People.  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?

Modern Poverty Includes A.C. and an Xbox.  When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can't adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.  When the Census Bureau defines "poverty," though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as "poor."  Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.

Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox.  According to the government's own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV.  The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars).  For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR.  If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.  In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove.  Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

How To Serve The Needy At A Fraction Of The Cost.  Our nation's entitlement programs, from Social Security to Medicare to ObamaCare to dozens of welfare programs such as Medicaid, are all based on simple, late-19th century tax and redistribution ideas.  Politically, we will never be able to solve the entitlement crisis by simply trying to cut people's benefits.

The Sugar Daddy Has Run Out of Sugar.  Barack Obama's big government policies continue to fail.  He should put a link to the national debt clock on his BlackBerry.  The gears on that clock have nearly exploded during his administration.  Yesterday's terrible job numbers should not be a surprise because it all goes back to our debt.  Our dangerously unsustainable debt is wiping out our jobs, crippling our economic growth, and jeopardizing our position in the global economy as the leader of the free world.

Holder's Justice Department bullying banks.  A cadre of racialists bent on achieving social justice via reparations from banks to minority communities has been installed by Eric Holder in the Department of Justice.  They are using legal bullying tactics to intimidate banks into once again loaning mortgage money to people who have no ability to pay it back.  Banks have even been forced to post signs in the facilities informing customers that welfare payments can count as income to apply to mortgage applications.

Holder Launches Witch Hunt Against Biased Banks.  In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination, according to court documents reviewed by IBD.  Prosecutions have already generated more than $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist.  An additional 60 banks are under investigation, a DOJ spokeswoman says.

Honk if I'm paying your mortgage

Gingrich: "Obama Is The Most Successful Food Stamp President In American History".  ["]We need a program to put 14 million Americans back to work.  We are committed to creating jobs.  The Democrats are committed to killing jobs.  You decide which future you want, paychecks or food stamps?["]

Liberal Frankensteins.  Indeed, what makes this Fourth different from recent celebrations is the ongoing repudiation of almost everything antithetical to the Founders' views — the redistributive, all-powerful welfare state, the therapeutic arrogance that believes human nature can be altered by an omnipotent well-meaning government, the postmodern notion that nationhood and borders are passé, and the utopian idea that war can be declared obsolete and the need for defense transcended.  From Greece to California such dreams are dead.

The wheels come off.  Listen carefully to those screams of outrage and sounds of shattering glass you hear wafting from the streets of Athens as rioters "protest" the end of an internationally funded gravy train:  This is what happens when an irresponsible government and a lazy, entitled public finally run out of other people's money.  Welcome to the beginning of the end of the welfare state.

Homeless men sue over US begging ban.  Five homeless men are suing a city in Virginia, claiming that a new law against begging violates their right to freedom of speech under the US constitution.

Nude Woman Bathes On NYC Subway Train.  In this week's crazy NYC subway video series, a woman, nude from the waist down, sets up a wash station on the blue bench of a subway car and proceeds to take a camping-style shower.

Fewer prosecuted in benefits program fraud.  People who defraud food stamps, Social Security or other benefits programs are less likely to face federal criminal charges.  In the two years since President Obama took office, data released by the Justice Department show the number of criminal prosecutions for defrauding those programs has dropped by about 20% to its lowest point in a decade.

Top 10 Examples of San Francisco Silliness.  After it offered generous benefits and an elaborate support system to care for its transient population, San Francisco shouldn't have been surprised when problems with the homeless arose -- like the smell of urine permeating the Tenderloin.  Voters took care of having to walk around drunken hobos by passing a measure banning sitting or lying on city sidewalks.

The Food-Stamp Crime Wave.  The Obama administration is far more enthusiastic about boosting food-stamp enrollment than about preventing fraud.  Thanks in part to vigorous federally funded campaigns by nonprofit groups, the government's AmericaCorps service program, and other organizations urging people to accept government handouts, the number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and costs have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.

American Cancer Society Declares Poverty A Carcinogen.  A report released Friday [6/17/2011] by the American Cancer Society echoes a 1989 statement by Dr. Samuel A. Broder, then director of the National Cancer Institute, who said that poverty is a carcinogen.  The society's report said that the lower a person's socioeconomic status, the greater the risk of cancer.  That's especially true for lung cancer, the report said, "for which death rates are 4 to 5 times higher in the least educated than in the most educated individuals."

The Editor says...
 Nonsense.  Poverty and lung cancer are both symptoms of a lifetime of bad decisions and foolish choices.  With only a few exceptions, people who have lung cancer have brought it upon themselves.

Store owner accused of massive food-stamp fraud.  After reporting low income and virtually no assets, the government says, Ahmed Sheikh Mohamed got help for food, housing, heating, medical treatment and college costs for his family.  He didn't disclose that his small Grand Rapids grocery store deposited $800,000 from 2006 to 2009.  Or, that he made $60,000 annually in food-stamp fraud.  Or, that he routinely moved cash in a business account to an account for personal spending, which included a $15,000 family vacation in Mecca, the government said.

Welfare Steak and Lobster May Kill the Middle Class.  I almost feel sorry for the enterprising Louis Wayne Cuff. ... Here's a man who had the gumption to get up in the morning, buy six lobsters, two porterhouse steaks and five 24-packs of Mountain Dew, and resell them at a 100% profit.  The interesting thing here is that the government itself was actually funding the effort.  You see, Louis bought all of it using his Bridge Card, i.e., the welfare debit card that replaced the old-fashioned food stamps.

New London's whale fountain shut off for sanitary reasons.  The city turned off the water at the new whale tail fountain over the weekend after someone reportedly defecated in the water.  "People are using the tail as a latrine," Evelyn Louziotis said.  "It's an $11 million bathroom." ... Buscetto said since water started flowing in the whale fountain last month, police and fire officials have been called for people urinating, defecating and washing themselves off in the fountain water.

Creating Poverty Through 'Social Justice'.  In the story about social justice not working in San Francisco, we witness the creation of special interest groups, via legislation and regulation, which are literally inserted into the free market process to create wealth for entities that would otherwise not be needed in the free market Capitalist economic system.  By virtue of San Francisco's social justice legislation and regulation, wealth has been extracted from the taxpayers, unnecessarily, via the process of government procurement, to reward the unproductive.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is Progressive, Socialist, Marxist, wealth redistribution fashioned for the Capitalist economic system.  It's here and it is happening... right now.

Food Stamp Millionaire.  If you have any uncertainty regarding the responsibility for the nearly bankrupt status of the state of Michigan and its cultural and philosophical epicenter, Detroit, take a gander at the state's food stamp program.

Michigan man still on food stamps despite winning $2M.  A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that he still uses food stamps.  Leroy Fick of Bay County admitted he still swipes the electronic card at stores, nearly a year after winning a jackpot on "Make Me Rich!"  He told WNEM-TV in Saginaw that more than half the prize went to taxes.

Update:
 Lottery winner's luck running out.  The luck of Leroy Fick, Michigan's 59-year-old "Food Stamp Millionaire" — a lottery winner on government food assistance — appeared to be running out Wednesday [5/25/2011] as state officials worked to get him off the dole.

Grown-up babies.  Not from nowhere has this stubborn, self-destructive sense of entitlement sprung.  As I reported last month, a record-breaking 12 million Americans have been added to the federal food stamp rolls over the past two years, and the bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army has been converted into a publicist corps for the welfare machine.  Just this week, a Michigan man boasted that he's still collecting food stamps after winning a $2 million government-sponsored lottery prize.  "If you're going to ... try to make me feel bad, you aren't going to do it," he told a local TV reporter.  Embedded in his rebuke is the eternal refrain of the self-esteem-puffed teenager:  "You can't judge me!"

$2M Michigan lottery winner defends use of food stamps.  Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don't count as income.  As long as Fick's gross income stays below the eligibility requirement for food stamps, he can receive them, even if he has a million dollars in the bank.  Food stamps are paid for through tax dollars and are meant to help support low-income families.

The Editor says...
 How many more food stamp recipients have plenty of money in the bank?  And when I say "plenty" I mean $25,000 or more.

Airport geese to be cooked for poor.  New York City plans to capture pesky geese that threaten planes departing area airports and send them to Pennsylvania to be cooked for meals for the poor, city officials said.

The Missing Fifth.  As my colleague David Leonhardt pointed out recently, in 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked.  Today that number is around 80 percent.  One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.

Welfare nation.  The latest economic indicators suggest America's sputtering economic engine may conk out once again.  Disappointing service-sector and job-growth figures released Wednesday [5/4/2011] are signs of rough times ahead.  With a weak dollar and stratospheric gasoline prices, millions more could find themselves seeking government assistance.  The administration appears to be just fine with that.

If Our 'Food Stamp Recovery' Persists, Obama Will Lose Big.  I have noticed something unsettling in my own life lately: I know a lot of people who are on food stamps or some kind of extraordinary government assistance.  The count right now stands around 10 people, which is a lot for a small town denizen such as myself.  That is a personal reminder of a very serious, yet rarely discussed economic, social, and indeed political problem:  the fact that better than one out of seven Americans today requires government help to put food on the table.

Obama Gives Fraud-Infested Welfare Program $311 Mil.  Every year... the Department of Health and Human Services allocates billions of taxpayer dollars to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), despite documented waste and corruption that's been repeatedly exposed in congressional probes and the media.  So far this fiscal year, the Obama Administration has given LIHEAP $4.2 billion.

USDA Spends $5 Mil To Recruit Food-Stamp Recipients.  The number of food-stamp recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years yet the Obama Administration keeps wasting millions of taxpayer dollars to recruit more participants in the name of eradicating "food insecure households."  The latest publicly-financed campaign to boost the food-stamp rolls -- officially known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP -- was announced this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency that administers it.  The USDA is dedicating $5 million this year to "improve access to and increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program."

Obama's Brand of 'Greatness' for America.  Apparently America is at the pinnacle of its greatness, because we are giving it all away.  According to this report, 50% of Americans are receiving entitlements, and more shocking is this report that shows that as many as 62% of illegal immigrants are receiving them.

America's Ever Expanding Welfare Empire.  A fundamental misconception about America's welfare state misleads millions of voters to reflexively support ever bigger and more generous government.  William Voegeli fingers the attitude in his book, Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State:  "no matter how large the welfare state, liberal politicians and writers have accused it of being shamefully small" and "contemptibly austere."

Government Creates Poverty.  The U.S. government has "helped" no group more than it has "helped" the American Indians.  It stuns me when President Obama appears before Indian groups and says things like, "Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans."  Ignored?  Are you kidding me?  They should be so lucky.  The government has made most Indian tribes wards of the state.  Government manages their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child care.

The Welfare State and the Selfish Society.  In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the "social compact," as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness.  The opposite is the truth.  Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people — and therefore, a far more selfish society — than a free-market economy.  And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.

For First Time Since 1936...
 Government Handouts Top Tax Income.  For the first time since the Great Depression, households are receiving more income from the government than they are paying the government in taxes.  The combination of more cash from various programs, called transfer payments, and lower taxes has been a double-barreled boost to consumers' buying power, while also blowing a hole in the deficit.  The 1930s offer a cautionary tale:  The only other time government income support exceeded taxes paid was from 1931 to 1936.  That trend reversed in 1936, after a recovery was underway, and the economy fell back into a second leg of recession during 1937 and 1938.

Slacker America.  America's work ethic comes from our Puritan past.  When we were an agrarian country, you either worked or starved.  In the 19th and 20th Centuries, we developed into an industrialized nation, led by men with a solid work ethic, that became the strongest economy in the world.  This attitude was essential to our victory in two world wars and our transformation into the globe's sole superpower.  Regrettably, cultural attitudes have changed substantially, and we now often see derision of our traditional principles.

A nation of sponges:
 Nonpayers Complicate Republican Effort At Overhaul of U.S. Tax Code.  More than 45 percent of U.S. households won't owe federal income taxes for 2010.  That stems from decades of tax cuts and, in the minds of some Republican lawmakers, it's also a problem.  Policies designed to ease the tax burden of lower-income Americans and offer targeted tax incentives have pushed millions of people off the income tax rolls.  That has bolstered an argument that these households don't have enough of a stake in the political system because they don't pay income taxes.

Moocher Society.  This growing trend can only lead to one thing:  crippling our society.  There comes a point when the few producers can no longer support the growing masses of moochers.

Give them an inch, and they'll take a meter.
 Fraudulent tax returns surge 181%.  The IRS identified 335,341 tax returns claiming $1.9 billion in fraudulent refunds as of March 4, 2011, according to the findings of an audit conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. ... The Earned Income Tax Credit, aimed at helping lower-income taxpayers, has been a large source of fraud, with people falsely lowering their income to qualify or claiming children they don't have.  The IRS estimates that 23% to 28% of EITC credits are wrongfully paid to Americans every year, totaling $11 to $13 billion.

Obama's charity state.  President Obama made a big to-do about a big speech about his allegedly big new plan to reduce the really big deficit and fix the country the way a president is supposed to.  Predictably, he dusted off old far-left mantras as tired as Joe Biden at an Obama speech, spouting yet again that the way to end deficits is to raise taxes.  The rhetoric on the left is getting more shrill by the minute, with accusations of Republicans wanting to "steal" from poor people, women and senior citizens.  Yes — "steal" — as if there is money that is theirs and mean old Republicans want to break into their homes in the middle of the night and lift it from their wallets.

Taking, not making.  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, our economy has changed from a dynamic growth economy into a non-growth, tired and spent welfare state.  The implications of this change are enormous and should be recognized by investors, taxpayers and anyone else who will pay in one way or another for this change.  There are at least three reasons why our economy has reached this point.

Tax Day And The Future Tyranny Of The Non-Taxed.  Ah, April 15th!  I want you to consider that the date means absolutely nothing to 47% of US households as they will pay zero in federal income tax.  Yes, state, property and sin taxes still get them, but we are seeing a disturbing trend towards a tipping point where fewer than half of us pay any sort of income tax.

The Obama administration is using (mostly black) churches to expand the welfare state.
 Michelle's Machine:  [Scroll down]  Religious leaders are prodded to work with schools to "create a wellness club for teachers with volunteer instructors from the congregation" and to "help your local school install a salad bar in its cafeteria."  Most worrisome, though, are the administration's efforts to have congregations place themselves in the service of government as recruiters for the welfare state.  Congregations are told to "encourage eligible families to enroll their children in [government-subsidized] school meal programs"; if organizations operate day-care or after-school programs, they are advised to pursue reimbursement for meals and snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (a federally funded, state-administered welfare program).  Places of worship are asked to serve as feeding sites for the Summer Food Service Program -- another federally funded, state-run welfare project.

The Editor says...
 Where are the "separation of church and state" people now?

America, the Dependent.  In New York, Philadelphia and a total of 30 sites across the country, AmeriCorps and the Department of Agriculture are funding the "National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps" to "increase access to food stamps."  National Affairs managing editor Meghan Clyne reports that the administration is roping in left-wing churches to aggressively promote food stamps.  With institutional support from first lady Michelle Obama, the FoodStampCorps will train church members to apply for food stamps after religious services...

Top 10 Spending Cuts Thwarted by Democrats:  [#9]  Legal Services Corporation:  Long before Hillary Rodham was first lady (and before she started using her husband's name), the Rose Law Firm lawyer was named by President Jimmy Carter to serve on the Legal Services Corporation board.  During her tenure as chairwoman, she was able to triple the budget for the agency, which aids poor people with their legal problems. ... Obama wants to add $30 million to its budget, while the GOP wants to cut $100 million.

Importing Poverty:  My colleague Steve Camarota has published a look at welfare use by immigrant families with children, and it's pretty dire.  Fifty-seven percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children (which is alarmingly high in itself).  The highest rates are for families headed by an immigrant from the Dominican Republic (82 percent using welfare) and Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent).  The states with the highest rates are Arizona, Texas, California, and New York (61-62 percent) — which, unfortunately, are also the top states of immigrant settlement.  For immigrant households with four or more children, 81 percent are using welfare, as are 80 percent of households with children that are headed by an immigrant without a high school degree.

Freeloaders.  Some Americans actually make a living ... begging for money.  Professional panhandlers, they're called, sometimes making more than $100 in a day. I tried it in Manhattan, and made over $11 in one hour — that would be $23,000 a year — tax free!  It's a small example of why some said that the USA is turning into a nation of freeloaders.  The Manhattan Institute's Heather MacDonald says that beggars she's encountered "have the most deep-seated sense of entitlement that I've ever come across."

Welfare overhaul bill would require food stamp recipients to work.  Able-bodied recipients of food stamps would be required to work or seek work under a welfare overhaul bill introduced Thursday [3/17/2011] that U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett said "promotes self-reliance as a solution to poverty."

Entitlements are not Endowed.  Man made 'entitlements'.  'Entitlements' are not Endowed By Their Creator.  'Entitlements' are not sacred.  Man can un-make 'entitlements'.  And stark reality says we had better hurry.

Department of Redundancy Department.  GAO found that there are 18 programs that provide food and nutrition assistance administered by the Department of Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services.  Those who get freebie groceries from the Commodity Supplemental Food Program can also obtain goods from the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps).  Children get food from the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, the Summer Food Service Program, the Special Milk Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of U.S. Wages.  Government payouts — including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance — make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn't taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

Runaway Trains of Bureaucracy.  [Scroll down]  For example, according to the GAO report, 18 different programs across three federal agencies work to "ensure the needy have access to food," producing an estimated $62.5 billion in overlap.  Every one of these eighteen programs found an ample supply of needy mouths to feed, and set about requesting an ever-larger cornucopia from Congress.  None of the bureaucrats involved was going to spend his valuable time searching the massive federal flowchart to see if any other agency might already be working to assist prospective clients.  There was no incentive for them to make their agencies less useful, and less worthy of a funding increase in the next budget.

DOJ sting targets Bobby Jindal and ignores the law.  Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department has targeted Gov. Bobby Jindal's, R-La., administration as part of a rushed investigation into whether Louisiana is complying with federal voting laws.  Undercover investigators have flooded the state to interview welfare recipients to determine if state welfare offices are urging them to register to vote.  During a time when DOJ travel is purportedly frozen, these numerous DOJ staffers have been deployed for days in New Orleans and around Louisiana trolling for stories of state officials failing to urge welfare recipients to register to vote.

This Country is Committing Suicide.  It should be obvious to most people that this country is on a rapid path to ruin.  More than thirty cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed, much of it from the Chinese.  Nearly half of all adults pay no Federal income taxes and have no stake in seeing the country balance its budget.  Worse, a rapidly growing army of able-bodied adults have chosen to live off government handouts.  While most people still get up in the morning and go to work, there are too many who have decided it is too much trouble.

Obama's HHS Is Bigger Than LBJ's Government.  Anyone who doubts that the trend toward socialism is pushing America toward ruin should examine the historical tables President Obama published Monday along with his $3.7 trillion budget.  In fiscal 2011, according to these tables, the Department of Health and Human Services will spend $909.7 billion.  In fiscal 1965, the entire federal government spent $118.228 billion.  What about inflation?  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, $118.228 billion in 1965 dollars equals $822.6 billion in 2010 dollars.  In real terms, the $909.7 billion HHS is spending this year is about $87.1 billion more than the entire federal government spent in 1965.

The Welfare State of the Union.  What we hear, again and again, is the fantasy that government creates jobs, government drives the economy, government feeds kids and sends them to bed happy.  The facts are just the opposite.  In fact, the Department of Agriculture has just reported that 43.6 million Americans are now receiving food stamps.  Significantly, in 2006, near the height of the historic Bush economic expansion, the number of Americans receiving food stamps was just over 20 million.  Since then, the number of recipients has more than doubled, with nearly all of the increase coming under the presidency of Barack Obama.

Junk Government Statistics.  [Scroll down]  Quite a few people have reported cash incomes below $25,000.  Especially those who are moving from one job to the next, or experiencing a spell of unemployment.  But this measure counts only "official" income — not what people actually consume.  Studies show consumption at lower incomes is typically much higher than reported income.  Why?  The government's poverty data do not include the welfare — the earned income tax credit, the food stamps, the housing aid, the public health insurance, the school lunches and the outright cash grants — that makes up the social safety net.  A massive five-decade study of consumption and poverty by economists Bruce Meyer and James Sullivan found "consumption poverty rates often indicate large declines, even in recent years when income poverty rates have risen."  In short, real poverty is rare.

Capitalism is Peaceful, Socialism is Force.  Government wealth redistribution is force, plain and simple.  It's not a power authorized by the United States Constitution, and it's never moral.  It's the principle of the thing:  Initiating force against another is always wrong.  When you form an army, a police force and build jails to house people who don't obey you, and you threaten this loss of freedom (including death, should you try to escape) for not giving up a portion of your money to others, then this is force.  And it's wrong.

The 'rational' exuberance of spending other people's money.  Whether it is a king living the life of luxury in a palace or it is a welfare mother using food stamps and government handouts to subsidize 60-inch flat-screen TVs, Xbox game systems, and brand-new automobiles, it is a reflection of the exact same sense of entitlement.  The king and the welfare mom both think they don't have to work, and you do.

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code.  While approximately half of Americans buy at least one lottery ticket at some point, the vast majority of tickets are purchased by about 20 percent of the population.  These high-frequency players tend to be poor and uneducated, which is why critics refer to lotteries as a regressive tax.  (In a 2006 survey, 30 percent of people without a high school degree said that playing the lottery was a wealth-building strategy.)  On average, households that make less than $12,400 a year spend 5 percent of their income on lotteries — a source of hope for just a few bucks a throw.

Stop the Fraud — Freeze the Debt Ceiling.  Cuts are not politically viable in our democratic welfare state.  Generations have been conditioned to "gimme" politics.  As a result, no politician can run and win on a platform of "vote for me and this is what I will take away from you."  That is why cuts never come and spending rises inexorably.  That is why the debt limit will be raised again (and again and again) until the dollar and economy collapse.

Education Cutbacks and Urban Violence.  Bloated public education budgets in our large cities may be immune from serious cuts for an unpalatable reason:  the threat of urban violence. ... Difficult budgetary choices entail an element that dare not speak its name:  cutbacks may risk 1960s style riots, and these costs may far exceed temporary savings.  To be blunt, cities often solved riot problems via bloated education-related employment, and bereft of these jobs, cities may return to "long hot summers".

Got Food Stamps? Get Free Sprint Wireless Services.  Can government subsidies help Sprint Nextel bounce back?  Perhaps so, in a way you may not think.  Sprint, which reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, seems to be having success with its Assurance Wireless brand, a prepaid offering.  Sprint launched the government-subsidized Assurance program in early 2010.  Sprint now markets the Assurance brand in 22 states and Washington, D.C.  Sprint expanded the Assurance brand to Pennsylvania today [2/14/2011].

The Hunger Code.  It is getting hard to keep track.  One minute the government tells us American children are suffering from record levels of obesity.  The next, children are facing a hunger epidemic.  Which horror story should you believe?  Neither.  The truth is, 94.3 percent of American households are able to put enough food on the table every day to feed their families, and the vast majority of children living in these households are healthy and well-fed.  Given the food shortages facing people in other countries, Americans are the envy of the world.

Taxpayer Dollars Being Used to Fight for Homeless People Living in Illegally Parked Vehicles.  The taxpayer-funded Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) is suing the city over its efforts to bar homeless people from illegally living in campers, trailers, and cars on the streets of the city's Venice neighborhood.  Some homeless people say they're being targeted because of who they are.  "Stop the haters," said one protest sign carried by a homeless man in Venice during a protest march in December.

Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation.  Six years ago I wrote a book called "Uncle Sam's Plantation."  I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it. ... I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.  A vast sea of perhaps well intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960's, that were going to lift the nation's poor out of poverty.  A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation.  Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from "How do I take care of myself?" to "What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"

Amazing Hypocrisy Alert on the Upper West Side.  This story tells of a demonstration staged by Democratic politicians on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on the issue of homelessness.  In attendance: Rep. Charlie Rangel, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Councilwoman Gail Brewer, and others.  What they're all doing, though, is protesting against the creation of a homeless shelter.

The government usurps the role of churches and private charities:
 City puts a stop to homeless outreach.  Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day.  They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.  That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit.  And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one. ... Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department.

The Editor says...
 Obviously the government's goal is to have as many people as possible dependent on it rather than the local churches or generous individuals.  It's a not-so-obvious means of buying votes:  If you depend on the almighty government for your daily bread, you'll naturally vote for the political party that will perpetuate that arrangement.

The Voyage of the Doomed.  The welfare state is coming face to face with the problem of how to fund its generous entitlement system with shrinking numbers of highly credentialed service workers who can't find jobs.

Obstacle to Deficit Cutting:  A Nation on Entitlements.  Efforts to tame America's ballooning budget deficit could soon confront a daunting reality:  Nearly half of all Americans live in a household in which someone receives government benefits, more than at any time in history.  At the same time, the fraction of American households not paying federal income taxes has also grown -- to an estimated 45% in 2010, from 39% five years ago, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization.

Promises and Riots:  You cannot have generous welfare state laws that allow people to retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.  In the United States, that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions — which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."  Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow.

Understanding Poverty in America.  The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
  •   Forty six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes.  The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three bedroom house with one and a half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
  •   Seventy six percent of poor households have air conditioning.  By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
  •   Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded.  More than two thirds have more than two rooms per person.
  •   Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
  •   Ninety seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
  •   Seventy eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
  •   Seventy three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Free Wi-Fi Given to San Francisco Public Housing.  San Francisco has finished installing free Wi-Fi in its public housing facilities as part of a citywide housing improvement initiative.

What Do Liberals Have To Show For 50 Years Of Horrible Policies?  [Scroll down]  When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down.  When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining.  Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.  The percentage of children born outside of marriage — to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women — exploded.

Childhood Poverty's Low-Hanging Fruit.  What if there was a proven way to instantly and dramatically reduce the statistic of 1-in-5 American children now living under the federal poverty line, as reported in the September 2010 U.S. Census figures?  Better still, what if this economic remedy cost taxpayers zero dollars and simultaneously curbed generational poverty to boot?  Surely people of all ideological stripes could agree that such "low-hanging fruit" ought be plucked for the betterment of those who have little say in their economic flourishing — children.  Such a solution exists.  It's called marriage.

Raymeica Kelly

2010: The Year Of The Moocher.  The picture shows Raymeica Kelly holding up two powers bills, power bills that were not paid by YOU, the taxpayers, because she was turned away from the Energy Assistance Program.  But what is that pesky object sitting right behind Raymeica Kelly?  Why, could it be... a big screen television??  And what's that under her big screen television... an X-box video game system!

15 states get bonuses for adding uninsured children to Medicaid rolls.  Even states can get performance bonuses, at least when it comes to moving kids from the "uninsured" to the "insured" list.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that 15 states will be getting a little something extra in their end-of-the-year stockings for their effectiveness at providing health insurance to kids through Medicaid.

The Editor says...
 In other words, the federal government is bribing the states to get more people dependent on welfare.

Getting America Back On Track.  [Scroll down]  In a sane society, market forces would be allowed to work: those who are no longer making mortgage payments would be foreclosed on; those who are underwater, but can afford to honor their mortgage agreements would continue doing so; and government would get out of the way and let nature take its course, however painful that would be for some Americans.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a sane society.  We live in one where "victims" abound, victims who feel entitled to live in houses they no longer pay for, or walk away from their freely-contracted obligations because it didn't work out as envisioned.  We have a government giving people $8000 in tax credits to buy houses in order to artificially shore up the market, and judges delaying foreclosures because banks have done a lousy job processing paperwork.

Behind the broccoli: Liberalism's war on liberty.  What this country needs is a crop of healthy, hunger-free kids — and now, thanks to the hectoring of Michelle Obama and the terrible swift presidential pen of her husband, it has one:  the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. ... ObamaCare and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 are the things that expose modern liberalism for the iron fist in the velvet glove.  Can't feed yourself?  Dinner's on us.  Out of work?  We'll pay you to stay unemployed.  After all, you're too stupid to make your own best decisions in what used to be personal matters.  All we ask in exchange for your freedom is your vote.

Nancy Pelosi: A Ruler of Fools.  Nancy Pelosi doesn't have much longer as Speaker of the House.  But if there's one constant in our ever-changing world, it's that Pelosi will remain unconscionable until the gavel is wrested from her hand.  During a recent speech on the House floor, she expressed opinions about unemployment insurance and tax policy that seem irrational even for her.  Pelosi supports extending unemployment insurance beyond the current 99-week limit.  To substantiate her position, she touted unemployment benefits as a burgeoning economic catalyst.  All we need do is and tap into their power.  Pelosi informed Congress that "[u]nemployment insurance ... returns two dollars for every one dollar that is put out there."  A two-dollar return for every one invested is a lofty promise.

Unbundle the Welfare State.  The welfare system represents the majority of government spending in most modern, advanced nations.  Even in the United States, with its ideological commitment to capitalism, spending on pensions, health care, education, and welfare accounts for a majority of the primary public budget across the total of federal, state, and local governments.

This article includes a lot of useful background information:
 Teachers, Then and Now.  [Scroll down]  Thomas Lifson recently wrote [an article] about the enormous salaries of teachers in Illinois, a state where 14,000 teachers make more than $100,000 a year.  Do you think such well paid public employees could chip in 2 percent to help those less fortunate than themselves, people who are their neighbors?  Or has the habit of having the government administer aid sapped them of their charitable inclinations?

The Century-Old Gravestone With Current Appeal (To Some).  I don't know if the Democrats are genuinely sincere about their position or just plain dumb, but the idea that this country needs to extend unemployment benefits for those who've been getting checks for nearly two years has no merit at all. ... [T]he Democrats insist that extending the unemployment benefits somehow will stimulate the economy.  They are either brain dead or malicious.

Gettin' Fat, Gamblin', And Cruisin' On Food Stamps.  Matching hungry Depression-era Americans with farm surpluses motivated the first Federal food stamp program in the 1930s.  Today, to remove the stigma of paying at the supermarket with the stamps, some 120 Million Americans get Electronic Benefit Transfer debit cards (EBT) from the renamed Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). ... In California, the poor can use the EBT card at the farmers' market, and the flea market, and even dine out.  Under a new state law, counties can permit the use of the CalFresh EBT cards at approved restaurants.  The San Diego County program limits the EBT restaurant use to seniors, the disabled, and the homeless.  The San Diego list of approved restaurants includes KFC, McDonald's, and other fast food franchises.  So, at least in my home town, obesity is not such a problem that it can't be subsidized by the government.

Michelle's free lunch:  This free lunch bill, is not quite the free lunch it appears to be; it is paid for by reductions in funding for food stamps where people can actually select what food to buy for their kids, say potatoes or potato chips, in their food desserts.  And why do so many kids get "half their daily calories from school meals"?  This is another area of responsibility removed from the parent(s) and handed over to the government; parents don't even have to make their kids lunch to take to school.

More Disincentives to Work.  Thanks to food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies, and other welfare benefits, many "poor" people have far more disposable income than self-supporting households earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year.  Veronique de Rugy points to a finding that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year" — even excluding benefits from Supplemental Security Income.  "America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system."

Boston Globe Criticizes Anti-Poverty Program.  Credit where credit is due.  The Boston Globe is publishing a major three-part story by staff reporter Patricia Wen that is highly critical of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. ... Wen describes the federal SSI program as a "little-scrutinized $10 billion federal disability program has gone seriously astray, becoming an alternative welfare system with troubling built-in incentives that risk harm to children."

The Other Welfare.  The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for children was created mainly for those with severe physical disabilities.  But the $10 billion in federal benefit checks now goes primarily to indigent children with behavioral, learning and mental conditions.  Qualifying is not always easy -- many applicants believe it is essential that a child needs to be on psychotropic drugs to qualify.  But once enrolled, there is little incentive to get off.  And officials rarely check to see if the children are getting better.

Immoral Progressivism Failing Miserably.  In England, youths are rioting.  In Portugal, labor unions staged a national strike last Wednesday.  A little over a month ago, France and Greece were subjected to large, violent demonstrations and riots.  A common thread?  In each of these countries, the unrest was engendered by economic austerity measures proposed and/or enacted by government.  A far more salient common thread?  The morally corruptive nature of the progressivist ideology.

The Welfare State.  When we look at what the term Welfare State means we need to understand that it refers to a state or political entity whereby the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.  To have a welfare state stay viable you need to have a burgeoning economy, without such you set up the forces for disaster economically.

Why Do the Poor Stay Poor?  Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day.  They don't build businesses, or if they do, they don't expand them.  Unlike people in the United States, Europe and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don't lift themselves out of poverty.  Why not?  What's the difference between them and us?

Are We Subsidizing Unemployment?  The stimulus plan may have actually worsened unemployment.  New data suggest a large share of those without jobs remain on the sideline because of increasingly generous jobless benefits.

Universities encouraging students to receive welfare benefits.  Many American colleges and universities are steering their students toward a new source of "financial aid":  food stamps.  In Oregon, for instance, both Portland State and Pacific University encourage their students to apply for food stamps.  "Many students are surprised to learn that they may be eligible for Food Stamps," explains Portland State's website.

White House to put up to 5,000 salad bars in schools.  The White House is set to announce on Monday [11/15/2010] a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, despite uncertainties over how local health inspectors might treat those salad bars and USDA nutrition-tracking rules that could prove a major impediment.  Officials in the White House, led by chef Sam Kass, and at the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention, have been working to build a coalition representing the produce industry and Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services in Boulder, Colo. schools, who recently teamed with Whole Foods to raise $1.4 million from customers to establish a grant program that would place salad bars in qualifying schools.

Black Republican: Black Caucus preaches victimization and dependency.  Congressman-elect Allen West (R-Fla.), who said he plans to become the only black Republican in the Congressional Black Caucus, accused the organization of failing the black community by promoting dependence on government welfare programs.  "The Congressional Black Caucus cannot continue to be a monolithic voice that promotes these liberal social welfare policies and programs that are failing in the Black community, that are preaching victimization and dependency, that's not the way that we should go," West said on Fox News Friday [11/19/2010].

Why Do Blacks Still Buy The Government Plantation Lie?  Blacks still by and large see government dependence as the remedy rather than the disease, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  They still choose to listen to left wing black political leadership and media who have careers in keeping it all going.  Consider that it was welfare state government policies that caused this economic collapse to begin with.  And that it was community activist groups claiming to represent the interests of minorities who lobbied for these policies.

The fight is not over.  America was at its zenith in 1958 — universally recognized to be at the height of its power, the peak of its creativity, and the most affluent it would ever become.  You might well think, as many did at the time, that America was safe from any threat, foreign or domestic.  It seemed like a perfect time to "spread the wealth around," and over the next decade that's just what happened.  The invention of the Welfare State didn't begin with LBJ's "Great Society," but it certainly became an inseparable element of public policy at that time, first with Medicare and then with more and more taxpayer-funded entitlement programs.

Obama Battles Reagan.  Every major Obama initiative from Obamanomics to ObamaCare is inevitably attempting to transform America just as Obama promised:  taking the prosperous America Ronald Reagan saw as The Shining City Upon a Hill and turning it into a Society of Beggars.  Sending Americans begging — literally.  Turning Reagan's "Morning in America" into what Rush Limbaugh has termed Obama's endless Dark Night of the Soup Kitchen.  All of this based on the idea that building the American economy (or for that matter any economy), as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, must be done based on the philosophy that "the biggest bang for the buck [comes] when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance — the biggest bang for the buck."  This is, of course, straight from Marx.

The Curse of the Welfare State.  It is Europe's autumn of discontent.  All across the continent, people are taking to the streets to protest the austerity measures of their governments.  The governments have to cut for a simple reason:  They are broke.  They no longer have the money to sponsor the kind of padded lifestyles to which their citizens have grown accustomed.  This in turn makes the citizens angry — so much so that they are willing to turn their countries upside-down in order to obtain benefits their governments simply cannot provide.

Barack Obama: Welfare King.  ObamaCare is supposed to help about 32 million uninsured Americans get health coverage.  Half of those will get it through Medicaid, a means-tested entitlement program.  Folks, Medicaid is welfare.  Democrats want to put 16 million more Americans on the welfare rolls through Medicaid — and they think that's a good thing!

Pelosi Advocates Food Stamps to Help Economy.  Seriously.  There is a great danger here.  What she's talking about is right out of Karl Marx's socialist playbook.  Allegedly a devout Catholic who somehow manages to get around the Church's stand on baby killing via legalized abortion, she has ignored the warnings of numerous popes about socialism.

You can put a tuxedo on a pig, but it's still a pig.
 Food stamp program gets a new name: CalFresh.  California's food stamp program has a new name, which officials hope will encourage more people to apply for the nutrition benefit:  CalFresh.  The new name and logo — an abstract representation of the diverse produce available in California — was launched Saturday [10/23/2010] at an event in Long Beach sponsored by first lady Maria Shriver to provide free medical, financial and educational services to low-income women.

What I was able to buy with my food stamps:  What can you buy with food stamps?  Pretty much anything sold in a grocery store, other than tobacco, booze and hot food.  To find out what that really means, I took my November stipend to Whole Foods, a pricey organic food emporium that is as much a yuppie metaphor as it is a supermarket.

Food Stamps are easier to get than you think.  I'm on food stamps.  Last month, despite the fact that I'm middle class and have a job, the District of Columbia enrolled me in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  For the next year, I'll be getting $105 a month in assistance, no strings attached.  You wouldn't think I'd qualify.  As a master's student at American University and a part-time reporter for The Daily Caller, I don't meet the traditional definition of a poor person, and in fact I'm not poor.  But that didn't matter to the District's Department of Human Services.  They approved me anyway.

'Frequent fliers' misuse ambulances.  One man last year called Rural/Metro Medical Services, the region's busiest ambulance company, 313 times for a ride to a hospital.  Two other people used the company's ambulances more than 180 times.  Still others received rides once or more a week.  Emergency medical technicians refer to these patients as "frequent fliers," people who frequently request ambulance service simply because they can.

The Editor says...
 Obviously nobody takes an ambulance to the hospital on a weekly (or daily) basis unless someone else is paying for it.  Who do you suppose that would be?

Ann Arbor struggles with homeless influx.  This progressive city, long known for embracing the poor and destitute, is learning that its support has a price.  For several years, homeless from around the state have descended upon the city because of a largesse that ranges from social services to the generosity of U-M students toward panhandlers, said city police, social service agencies and transients.

America's Food Stamp Culture.  [Scroll down]  Nationwide, 6 percent of food stamp benefits are spent on sugary beverages, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program.  The [New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg]'s tough-love approach to New Yorkers on the food stamp dole comes as a record 41.8 million Americans — including the children of illegal immigrants — are getting monthly food stamp benefits.  The average payout:  $133.36 per person.  News accounts about record levels of food stamp use invariably note that the jobless rate is at a 27-year high — yet curiously, food-stamp use has been in an upward spiral for years, with more than a few Americans becoming permanent users of the program, a fact that underscores the dangers of dependence.

Liberalism's Moral Bankruptcy Has Bankrupted America.  President Reagan liked to tweak his liberal critics by saying, "some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won."  His statement is truer now than ever.

Pay Checks vs. Food Stamps.  The American people right now are interested in jobs, jobs, jobs, not welfare, so Newt Gingrich has grabbed the opportunity to set up a dividing line between jobs and welfare.  He's painting a picture in bold colors to contrast the Republican Jobs Party with the Democratic Welfare Party.  Let's help Newt with a few bold brushstrokes on welfare.

Food Stamp Nation.  "The lessons of history ... show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.  To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."  These searing words about Depression-era welfare are from Franklin Roosevelt's 1935 State of the Union Address.  FDR feared this self-reliant people might come to depend permanently upon government for the necessities of their daily lives.

Where your taxes all go.  If you think the federal taxes you pay go to the run the fed eral government, think again.  This year, every dime (and more) that the feds collect is going out in payments to other people.  That is, Washington is redistributing even more wealth than it takes in.

The Fifty Years' War.  This war has been fought over what defines American freedom.  Are Americans freer when they can pursue their dreams without government interference?  Or are they freer when the government ensures that all their needs are provided for?

Welfare card can be swiped for booze, slots.  Bay State welfare recipients can play the slots, pick up a six-pack of beer or nab a flat-screen plasma TV under loosey-goosey Bay State restrictions that allow those on the dole to treat taxpayers' wallets as their own personal ATM.

No Pop for the Poor.  New York City's mayor wants the federal government to say food stamps can't be used to buy soda — a story that is less about the technicalities of welfare and more about political paternalism.  Now, there's a strong argument to be made that if the government is setting the table and preparing the dinner, it should be able to choose the menu.

NY seeks to ban sugary drinks from food stamp buys.  New Yorkers on food stamps would not be allowed to spend them on sugar-sweetened drinks under an obesity-fighting proposal being floated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson.

3 in Seattle accused of trafficking food stamps.  Federal authorities and Seattle police have arrested three people and raided two grocery stores as part of what they describe as an undercover investigation into food stamp trafficking.

Poverty Is Up, Crime Is Down. Is That Possible?  [Scroll down]  Here is a curious thing about that increasing poverty, though — and it's something that has received very little press attention:  It has not resulted in a higher crime rate.  In fact, according to the FBI, even as unemployment was spiking during 2009, the rate of murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults declined by 4.4 percent compared with the previous year.  As even the Washington Post acknowledged, the conventional wisdom for many decades has been that "economic trouble breeds lawlessness."

More Proof We Can't Stop Poverty By Making It More Comfortable.  On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a State of the Union address to Congress in which he declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America."  Then, the poverty rate in America was around 19% and falling rapidly.  Last week, it was reported that the poverty rate this year is expected to be roughly 15%, and is climbing.  Between then and now, the federal government spent more than $13 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another couple of trillion.  Yet the poverty rate never fell below 10.5%.

10 States With Soaring Poverty Rates.  The poverty line is $10,830 per year, before taxes.  That single threshold remains the same for every American, whether he lives in Mobile, Alabama or the west shore of Maui in the Census Bureau's methodology.  To put it bluntly, that amount of money can go a lot further in Mobile than in Maui.  Where would you rather live with that lump sum, in Mobile, where a gallon of gas goes for $2.50 or in Maui, where it goes for $3.75?

Poverty and the Democrats.  The Associated Press reports that Census Bureau data due next week will show a record increase in the poverty rate. ... The Democrats, of course, are like the arsonist who works for the fire department.  They will argue that soaring poverty demands more government spending.

Racial Voyeurism.  Mortgage servicers are now expected to record the race of all their clients — including those expressly unwilling to provide one.  In order, naturally, to stop discriminatory lending.  The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is a creature of the Obama administration.  It advertises itself as helping "financially struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying loans."  Sounds important.  But its new guidebook reveals an intention to do more than just that.

A Nation on Entitlements.  Efforts to tame America's ballooning budget deficit could soon confront a daunting reality:  Nearly half of all Americans live in a household in which someone receives government benefits, more than at any time in history.  At the same time, the fraction of American households not paying federal income taxes has also grown — to an estimated 45% in 2010, from 39% five years ago, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization.  A little more than half don't earn enough to be taxed; the rest take so many credits and deductions they don't owe anything.

Policy Of Poverty.  An estimated 14.3% of the population, or 43.6 million people, were considered poor in 2009, up from 13.2% the year before, the Census Bureau reports.  This is the highest share living in poverty since the government began keeping records half a century ago.  How can this be in the richest nation on Earth?  Since Democrats took power — Congress in 2007, the White House in 2009 — policies that punish the productive private economy have become the norm.

Obama Underwrites Irresponsibility — Again.  The Obama administration has announced another plan to help between 500,000 and 1.5 million American homeowners who owe more money on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth.  The "short finance plan" is simple:  creditors write down mortgages to a number less than the value of the property — and then handoff the reduced loan to the American taxpayer via the Federal Housing Administration.  In other words, all taxpaying Americans are on the hook for the irresponsible behavior of a minority of their fellow Americans — again.

$69 million in California welfare money drawn out of state.  More than $69 million in California welfare money, meant to help the needy pay their rent and clothe their children, has been spent or withdrawn outside the state in recent years, including millions in Las Vegas, hundreds of thousands in Hawaii and thousands on cruise ships sailing from Miami.

The next day...
 State officials cancel access to welfare benefits on cruise ships and at all casinos.  California officials are cutting off use of state-issued welfare debit cards at casinos across the country and on cruise ships, in the wake of Times reports that the aid cards have been used to spend or withdraw millions of dollars in benefits at popular vacation spots including the Las Vegas strip and on ships sailing from ports around the world.

Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling wants to eliminate Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.  For years, conservatives inveighed against government-backed mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The complaints began with their dominance of the market and ended with a warning that taxpayers would bail them out one day.  Now that critics have been proven right, they're on the spot to show they know what's best for the future.  Among the questions:  Should Fannie and Freddie be privatized?  Abolished?  And how would government support the housing market without them?

The Editor says...
 Oh, dear.  The hack writer at the Dallas Morning News can't understand how anybody could buy a house without government help.  President Obama's goal is to maximize the number of people who are dependent upon the government.  The sooner Fannie and Freddie are buried, the better off we the people will be — at least those of us who pay taxes and purchase our own food and housing with money we have rightfully earned.

America Becomes a Two-Class Society.  Income tax day, April 15, 2010, now divides Americans into two almost equal classes:  those who pay for the services provided by government and those who don't.  The percentage of Americans who will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009 has risen to 47%.  That isn't the worst of it.  The bottom 40% not only pay no income tax, but the government sends them cash or benefits financed by the taxes dutifully paid by those who do pay income tax.

Words sugarcoat politicians' bad ideas.  [Scroll down]  Take the simple phrase "rent control."  If you take these words literally — as if they were money in the bank — you get a complete distortion of reality.  New York is the city with the oldest and strongest rent control laws in the nation.  San Francisco is second.  But if you look at cities with the highest average rents, New York is first and San Francisco is second.  Obviously, "rent control" laws do not control rent.

The Ballooning Welfare State.  According to USA Today, government anti-poverty programs serve a record one in six Americans, and that number is expected to rise as programs increase.  For example, the article reports that more than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, more than 40 million receive food stamps, close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, and more than 4.4 million remain on welfare.

The Folly of Subsidizing Unemployment.  The economic "recovery" has been disappointing, to put it mildly, and it has become increasingly clear that the blame lies with the policies of the Obama administration, not with those of its predecessor.  In general, the current administration has been too focused on expanding government, redistributing more from rich to poor, and stimulating aggregate demand.

Record number in government anti-poverty programs.  Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.  More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows.

Bangor food stamp scam dumps water for deposit using taxpayer funds.  Would you be willing to exchange $86.79 for $24?  A pair of men at the Shaw's supermarket on Main Street did just that on a recent Tuesday morning as they engaged in a food stamp scam funded by U.S. taxpayers.  After purchasing a reported twenty 24-packs of bottled water, on sale that week for $2.99 a case before taxes and redemption fees were added, the men went behind the store to the loading dock and poured the contents of each bottle on the ground.

Food stamp use hit record 40.8 million in May.  The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday [8/4/2010].

After the Welfare State.  F.A. Hayek in the 1940s showed that the welfare state was The Road to Serfdom because its government-directed benefit programs inevitably concentrated more and more power in the government and stripped citizens of their right to direct their own lives.  More specific studies by American conservative policy analysts in the 1970s, most notably Charles Murray in Losing Ground and George Gilder in Wealth and Poverty, showed that the poor were particularly disadvantaged by the progressive political agenda.  The welfare state with its subsidy for failure was encouraging a collapse in working class families and creating an underclass of single mothers married to the state and angry young men detached from fatherhood, responsibility, and work.

Hawaii exports its homeless problem to mainland US.  When tourists arrive in Hawaii, they're greeted with flowery necklaces and cries of "Aloha!".  But when those people turn out to be down-and-outs, the warm island welcome swiftly disappears.  Politicians in Honolulu, whose economy now revolves squarely around the tourist trade, are considering legislation that would see thousands of the city's homeless offered free one-way plane tickets back to their home states.

A Food Bill We Don't Need.  Feeding a child is one of the most basic parental responsibilities, yet first lady Michelle Obama wishes to liberate parents from this fundamental role by urging them to rely on the public schools to feed their children.  In [an] op-ed in the Washington Post, the first lady pushes for congressional passage of the Child Nutrition Act, a bill that would not only increase funding for the already-wasteful and badly managed school-lunch program but relax eligibility requirements so that more children can be enrolled.  It's clear that Michelle Obama, like her husband, sees government as the great fixer.

The Welfare Script.  America's welfare state has grown into an unwieldy hodgepodge of programs that provide various forms of assistance to tens of millions of Americans.  It costs taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars annually and experts predict that, absent reform, it will keep growing in the years ahead.  The welfare state acquired its girth by following a familiar script — over and over again.

The Left's Psychological Assault on Independence.  The strength of a nation reflects the character of its citizens.  While America was once considered a nation of individuals fiercely independent and self-reliant, her citizens are moving closer to a state of dependence, characterized by irresponsibility and ambivalence.  This change has been instigated by the politics of collectivism and the growth of the social welfare state.

Why Should Anybody Work?  The young interracial couple moved into the garden apartments near my house, and, before long, neighbors were complaining about the noisy stereo blasting, the wild pot parties, and the gangster-type visitors to the complex.  Women expressed concern for the couple's young infant being exposed to the pot smoke and pondered calling Social Services to report them.  Others warned against this, afraid of retribution by the couple's scary looking friends who were overheard planning a robbery with a handgun. ... I later learned that the couple had come out of a Brooklyn shelter and were not only getting subsidized housing but also vouchers for furniture; food stamps; free health care from Medicaid, and, of course, welfare.

The Democratic Party:  Keeping Blacks Down Since 1964.  Shortly after President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced an "unconditional war on poverty" in his State of the Union Address in 1964, his administration embarked on an expansion of bureaucracy rarely seen in American history.  Moreover, within two years of signaling the start of that war, LBJ interwove it with civil rights initiatives so that opposition to the War on Poverty could be branded "racism" by Democrats running against opponents of big government.  Time has shown that if there was any racism attached to the War on the Poverty it was the racism which Democrats brought to the table.

How Jobless Aid Became Dysfunctional.  Ever watch a parent lecture a demanding child about self-discipline — then give him everything he asks for?  That's the pattern Congress is falling into.  Beleaguered governors and advocates for the jobless are pleading with Congress to extend unemployment insurance, for at least the sixth time since 2008.

The Parade of Bleeding Stumps.  As public spending becomes an increasingly important issue for the November elections, be prepared to see the left engaging in hysterical scare-mongering about the potential effect of spending cuts.  This has been seen recently in Britain, where such scare-mongering already has its own label — "The Parade of the Bleeding Stumps."  This unsavory phrase originates in British government bureaucracy and darkly refers to the Civil Service's clever response to the threat of spending cuts.

The disintegration of the welfare state.  [Scroll down]  "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb," Benjamin Franklin reputedly said, "voting on what to have for lunch."  Democratic self-deprecation isn't quite as funny as it once was.  Mobs have already taken to the venerable, iconic streets of European states, notably among them Greece, birthplace of Athenian democracy.  It's apparently easier to give wealth away than it is to take it back.  Democracy assembled the welfare state peaceably enough.  Can democracy dismantle it as peaceably?  No, it can't.  The mobs are not finished.

Dependency, the Liberals' Natural Resource.  A Heritage Foundation report shows that thanks to multiple government programs, the proportion of Americans in some way dependent on government largess has suddenly jumped by 31.2% since 2001 after decades of much slower increases.  Even in inflation-adjusted dollars, America now spends thirteen times more on public welfare than it did in 1965.  Dependency has snowballed in health care, public welfare, and housing, and the upward trend seems likely to continue as Obama's statist polices take hold and baby boomers retire.

Federal Government Helped Pay Home Air-Conditioning Bills for Prisoners.  According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government helped pay the home air conditioning bills for more than 11,000 dead people, 1,100 federal employees, and 725 convicts in fiscal year 2009.  The payments were made by a $5 billion program known as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

Feds wasted millions in utilities program for poor.  A federal program designed to help impoverished families heat and cool their homes wasted more than $100 million paying the electric bills of thousands of applicants who were dead, in prison or living in million-dollar mansions, according to a government investigation.

Where Best To Be Poor.  Imagine you are an unborn spirit whom God has condemned to a life of poverty but has permitted to choose the nation in which to live.  I'm betting that most any such condemned unborn spirit would choose the United States.  Why?  What has historically been defined as poverty, nationally or internationally, no longer exists in the U.S.

With schools closed, different lunchrooms open.  Every school day, about 2.3 million low-income Texas children eat subsidized meals, but the numbers drop dramatically in the summer.  This time of year, hundreds of thousands of youngsters statewide go hungry or survive on food that's not necessarily nutritious, officials say.  But while fewer children nationwide received summer meals in July 2009 than in the previous July, the figure increased by 5 percent in Texas.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy comes to the lunchroom:
 Federal government eying free lunches for all students in high-poverty areas.  The federal government could soon be paying for lunch for entire communities of children under a new plan in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Christina A. Samuels of Education Week reports that the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010 would allow schools in high-poverty areas to be covered under a "community eligibility" option that allows free meals to all students without the traditional paperwork to determine eligibility.

Stop me before I spend again!  Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes says the state owes billions to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, state universities and he told The New York Times, "it's getting worse every single day."  He calls the state's inability to pay for essential services "obscene."  The real obscenity — in Illinois, California, New York and especially Washington, D.C. — is an inability to live within the means taxpayers provide.  Despite record high taxes in these states and more coming at the federal level, government never has enough of our money.  But it isn't all government's fault.  Too many Americans have come to rely on government to take care of them, and government has passed the point where it can do so any longer.

Housing Project Mob Attacks Cops, Firefighters.  A number of police officers and firefighters were apparently lured to a public housing project where they were attacked by a huge mob armed with fireworks and bottle rockets.  "I'm so angry," Alton Police Chief David Hayes told The Telegraph.  "This type of conduct is not supposed to happen in civil society."

The Editor says...
 Guess what, Chief.  This type of conduct does not happen in civil society.  You made the mistake of venturing outside of our civil society when you entered the projects.

Government Dependency Surges; Addiction To Get Worse.  Today the conservative Heritage Foundation released its 2010 version of the Index of Dependence on Government. ... Americans' dependence on government grew by 13.6% in 2009.  That's the biggest increase since 1976 and the fifth largest going back to 1962, when Heritage began tracking dependence.  The index measures federal government programs that can crowd out or constrain private sector or local government alternatives.

Dramatic Spike in Dependence Projected.  Year after year, The Heritage Foundation's Index of Dependence on Government documents the ever-growing number of federal aid programs and the ever-growing number of Americans who rely on government subsidies for their existence.  The number of Americans who now pay no taxes has passed 35 percent.

Jobs:  Too Many Riding, Too Few Pulling.  The one thing that economists seem to agree on is that any economic recovery will be an uphill battle for some time to come.  But if you've ever pulled a heavy wagon up a hill, you know what happens if your fellow pullers decide to become riders instead and jump on the wagon.

We're too broke to be this stupid.  In any advanced society, there will be a certain number of dysfunctional citizens either unable or unwilling to do what is necessary to support themselves and their dependents. ... When Michelle Obama turned up to serve food at a soup kitchen, its poverty-stricken clientele snapped pictures of her with their cellphones.  In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works.  They are not so much without employment as without need of it.  At a certain level, your hard-working bourgeois understands that the bulk of his contribution to the treasury is entirely wasted.  It's one of the basic rules of life:  if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it.

Why Cloward-Piven Will Eat Itself.  [Scroll down]  This cycle continues until all meaningful revenues dry up and the system essentially chokes on its own largesse and dies.  Then, Cloward and Piven would have us believe, a new, bigger government/bureaucracy/candy store of others' labors will arise to make sure everything is fair for everyone forever.  This leaves unresolved the question:  Now that the government is broke and the productive sector is broke and/or gone, who's going to finance this?  No one.  We have just entered a state of sociopolitical and economic upheaval.

Brothers accused of stealing federal food assistance benefits.  At the same time Mohamed and Omar Sufi were stealing $381,467 in federal food assistance benefits, the mother of the men, Mana Ayat, accepted $18,000 in rental housing subsidies for a home she didn't live in, federal prosecutors say.

Slaves to the government dole.  Throughout our history, politicians and pundits have often said "America is at a crossroads."  Sometimes it was true, as in the final convulsive years leading up to the Civil War when we decided to end slavery.  New data on personal income, taxes and dependency makes clear that the country is again at a historic crossroad and another form of slavery is the central issue.  There are no iron chains involved this time, but dependence on government for economic sustenance is no less an enslavement.

Why Obama's poverty rate measure misleads:  Who is poor in America?  This is not an easy question to answer, and the Obama administration would make it harder.  It's hard because there's no conclusive definition of poverty.  Low income matters, though how low is unclear.  Poverty is also a mind-set that fosters self-defeating behavior — bad work habits, family breakdown, out-of-wedlock births and addictions.  Finally, poverty results from lousy luck:  accidents, job losses, disability.

I Want It All, Even Better If You Pay for It.  Pick up any newspaper and you're bound to see a prominently featured story about someone somewhere losing a government benefit and enduring hardship as a result. ... Yet, at the risk of sounding hard-hearted, the U.S. can't afford to provide everyone with food, clothing and shelter, not to mention medical and child care, college tuition, a low-interest mortgage and a Social Security check until death.

What Exactly is 'Social Justice?'  Social justice is the complete economic equality of all members of society.  While this may sound like a lofty objective, what it really means is that wealth should be collected by the government and evenly distributed to everyone.  In short, social justice is communism.  It is rooted in the Marxist idea that the money people make, and the property they own, do not rightfully belong to the people who make the money and own the property.

The Ugly Side of Social Justice.  Although [Glenn] Beck has been adamant in expressing that his objections are solely concerned with how — not whether — the needy should be assisted, Wallis nonetheless seems content in portraying him as antagonistic to the plight of the poor.  And because of this unfair portrayal, Beck has been painted in the media as a monster for simply emphasizing his belief that it is better for individuals to donate their assistance to the downtrodden by choice rather than by dictate.

Jobpocalypse now.  This week, the Senate is expected to extend jobless benefits to more than 5 million Americans through the end of the year.  It is the sixth time in nearly two years that they've expanded or extended unemployment benefits — putting off, again, a day of reckoning our political leaders seem unwilling to face.

Obama's five-year plan for homelessness.  ["]On Tuesday, June 22, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) will release the nation's first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness.["]  Now, don't laugh.  I know we've never solved homelessness, but we've never had anyone as smart as Barack Obama try to tackle this problem before.

In a Welfare State, How Much Is 'Enough'?  California is imploding.  Public-sector unions there, and across the country, are swallowing budgets.  In California alone, pension costs have gone up 2,000 percent in a decade.  At the national level, Obamacare has done little to fix — and much to hurt — America's long-term entitlement mess.  Already, America's structural deficit has tripled since 2007.  Economist Price Fishback has just published a paper finding that America spends more on social welfare than socialist Sweden (though we spend it differently).

And Just A Closing Thought.  You may not realize it, but our country, the United States, is rapidly becoming nothing less than a giant economic support system for government.  We are so very close to the point where Americans will no longer exist to pursue and fulfill their own potentials.  We will exist for one purpose ... to support government and those who depend on government.

If America Were a Free Country, Immigration Would Not Be a Problem.  A century of progressive legislation culminating in the money-hemorrhaging Obama administration has resulted in a system of taxation by which approximately half of Americans pay no Federal income tax, and 40 percent actually receive payments from their fellow citizens via the IRS.  With this being the case, the majority of new immigrants from poor countries fall into the category that pays nothing and receives benefits that taxpayers are forced to provide.

A fool and his our money are soon parted.
 California welfare cards can be used in many casino ATMs.  California welfare recipients are able to use state-issued debit cards to withdraw cash on gaming floors in more than half of the casinos in the state, a Los Angeles Times review of records found.

Welfare recipients withdrew $1.8 million from casino ATMs.  California welfare recipients withdrew more than $1.8 million in taxpayer cash on casino floors between October 2009 and May 2010, state officials said Thursday [6/24/2010].  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also issued an executive order Thursday requiring welfare recipients to sign a pledge that they will use their cash benefits only to "meet the basic subsistence needs" of their families.

More than 40m now use food stamps .  The number of Americans receiving food stamps in March topped 40 million for the first time as the jobless rate hovered near a 26-year high.  Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases totaled 40.2 million, up 21 percent from a year earlier and 1.2 percent more than in February, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday [6/2/2010] in a statement on its website.  The number of recipients has set records for 16 straight months.

Food-stamp tally nears 40 million, sets record.  The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January.  USDA updated its figures on Wednesday [5/5/2010].

U.S. Spending on Food Stamps at All-Time High.  The U.S. is now spending more on food assistance than at any time in its history, sparking a debate over whether the roughly 40 million people now receiving the latest version of food stamps at a cost of $73 billion a year are a symptom of a weak economy or are part of a long-term expansion in welfare and related programs.

Maserati owner arrested in welfare fraud sweep.  A Cerritos woman was due in court Friday [5/28/2010] after being arrested in a massive welfare fraud sweep for receiving more than $60,000 in welfare benefits while allegedly concealing her ownership of a business, home and Maserati sports car.

The End of Democratic Socialism.  The end of democratic socialism is at hand.  The welfare states of the U.S. and Europe are financially out of control, spent and unsustainable.  They have reached the point that Margaret Thatcher defined as the end of socialism:  They have run out of other people's money.  These areas of the world are about to change dramatically.

The Liberal Trilemma.  [Scroll down]  Liberals acquire and maintain political power by distributing privileges and bounties to their supporters.  When you decide to do that, you inevitably press the pedal to the metal on "democracy" and "national sovereignty."  And that means that you are bound to sacrifice individual and national prosperity on the altar of politics.  Sooner or later, you hit the wall.  Just like Greece.  In other words, under liberals, democracy means the out-and-out conversion of the limited constitutional state into a patronage state.

Has Obama "Stimulated" the Economy Yet?  In the past sixteen months, Mr. Obama's immediate, short-term political need has produced a lot of public policy that positions the President to appear as though he's rescuing people — rescuing them from the economic downturn, from "greedy bankers" and "rich executives," from the threat of home foreclosure, from credit card debt, and so forth.  And part of the political calculus involved with this kind of policy is the assumption that as long as the President gives away enough "things" to the American electorate, and appears as though he's doing enough to "protect" them, the electorate will continue to vote for him and his party, regardless of what the economy does.

Schwarzenegger budget would eliminate welfare.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers Friday to eliminate the state's welfare program starting in October and dramatically scale back in-home care for the elderly and disabled as part of his May budget revision to close a $19.1 billion deficit.

America's Spirit of Enterprise Must Not Be Replaced By a Nanny State.  The greatness of America will cease with the continuance of a "nanny state."  America was not built with her hand out.  America was built with her hands at work.

Preparations for Reparations.  When the government decides what kind of light bulbs one can buy, what size toilet tank one can install, or how much salt can be added to one's food, then there is no limit to the depth and detail of government intrusion into one's life.  When every aspect of existence is decided or dictated by another, that is not freedom.  That is slavery.  Lest you think that only the half of Americans who actually pay taxes are slaves, let me hasten to address the rest.  Those who exist on the public dole, on welfare and subsidies and federal aid, are also slaves.  They are kept healthy, kept solvent, and just plain kept because they are vital to the whole system of slavery.  Every couple of years, this growing group of dependents is harvested for their votes.

Expanding the Failed War on Poverty.  It is clear that President Obama is intent on not only continuing the failed war on poverty but expanding and growing the size of the welfare state.  President Obama's 2011 budget will increase spending on welfare programs by 42 percent over President Bush's last year in office.  Total spending on the welfare state (including state spending) will rise to $953 billion in 2011.

Obama to Spend $10.3 Trillion on Welfare.  In his first two years in office, President Barack Obama will increase annual federal welfare spending by one-third from $522 billion to $697 billion.  The combined two-year increase will equal almost $263 billion ($88.2 billion in FY 2009 plus $174.6 billion in FY 2010).  After adjusting for inflation, this increase is two and a half times greater than any previous increase in federal welfare spending in U.S. history.

Stimulus Bill Abolishes Welfare Reform and Adds New Welfare Spending.  A major public policy success, welfare reform in the mid-1990s led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty.  This successful reform, however is now in jeopardy:  Little-noted provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate stimulus bills actually abolish this historic reform.

Bye Bye, CalWORKs.  In the early 1990s, Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to "end welfare as we know it."  Republicans in Congress called his bluff, and the result — the landmark 1996 welfare-reform bill — ushered in a decade of plummeting welfare rolls and declining poverty.  Now California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, no one's idea of a staunch conservative, has done Clinton one better:  He has called for the end of cash welfare in California, period.

The Progressive Assault on America.  For over a century, liberal-progressives have focused on replacing our Constitutional republic with a statist, social welfare state.

Dependence on Government Growing in U.S.  America has reached a tipping point in its citizens' dependence on government, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation. ... For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans are receiving more aid from the government than they are paying in taxes. ... More Americans are not paying taxes.  An estimated 34% of all taxpayers have zero tax liability, and the U.S. is approaching levels of one-third of taxpayers not paying taxes for federal benefits that they receive.  Housing assistance is at the second-highest level in history.

Subsistence as Freedom.  The Democrats' political endgame requires citizens to accept subsistence as the new definition of freedom.  Democrats created a political and socioeconomic system where citizens are divided into racial, social, and economic classes.  Democrats concoct government programs, sold under the guise of compassion and equality, to an unwitting but fully complicit populace addicted to handouts, freebies, and benefits paid for by the sweat and equity of others.  Welcome to the 21st-century definition of freedom according to the Democrats.

Democrats Try To Lock Up Their Base.  The Democrats and their feminist allies have decided on one of their major goals.  It is to increase the number of single moms by increasing the flow of taxpayer-paid incentives that subsidize the non-marriage lifestyle.  The plan also includes locking in this group's dependence on government and allegiance to the Democratic Party.

New Tax Math:  Single Moms + Big Brother.  The wrong-headed welfare system started in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and his proclaimed war against poverty.  The system should have been called the war against marriage.  LBJ's Great Society set up a grossly immoral system whereby millions of people were taught they had an "entitlement" to pick the pockets of law-abiding, taxpaying families if they met two conditions:  They didn't work, and they were not married to someone who did work.  This destroyed the work ethic and subsidized illegitimacy by giving single moms money and scores of benefits, such as welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, housing, utilities, WIC and commodities.

The Remains of a California Day.  [Scroll down]  At noon, I drove into the local warehouse supermarket.  When I checked out (and I had written about such incidents like this a near decade ago in Mexifornia), the checker and the woman behind me were trying to communicate in Spanish to instruct a young man and his wife (with four small children) about how to use his food stamp card (an anachronism since they look more like ATM plastic).

Mother shows no gratitude for profuse aid given her and 12 kids.  A courtroom full of people who paid off Angel Yulee Adams' debts and found a rent-free, six-bedroom home for her and a dozen of her children waited Monday morning for a sign of gratitude, a clue of cooperation.  They waited for a thank you.  They didn't get it. ... Adams lost her home after failing to pay rent to the Tampa Housing Authority, then recently was evicted from a two-bedroom rental apartment.

Home for Tampa mom, 12 children getting repairs.  [Scroll down]  Adams' plight emerged last week when she and her children were forced to stay in a rundown hotel room after she had been evicted from her apartment.  She doesn't work, and the father of many of her children was in prison.  She said that the county and state were not doing enough to help her and her children.  Her statements caused a stir of criticism, mostly from people who said she was the cause of her own problems.

Looking At Democracy.  Every time I use the word "democracy" to describe the process by which Americans elect their representatives, someone leaps to their computer to inform me that America is a "republic" and not a democracy.  I am well aware of this, but it does not change the process.  It got me thinking about Alexis de Tocqueville's trip throughout America in 1831-1832. ... Presciently, Tocqueville wrote, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."  That day has arrived.

A country of 'third rails'.  Since the inception of Social Security, there has been an unspoken rule in politics:  When campaigning for national office or running for re-election, a candidate could never pledge to touch, cut spending for, dismantle, or otherwise look crossways at Social Security unless it was to raise the payouts to its recipients.  Social Security has always been referred to as the "third rail" in politics. You simply never touch it.  It would now appear that the US is riddled with a plethora of untouchable third rails and holy grails.

Expansion of the welfare state disguised as environmentalism.
 Earth Day:  An Assault on Man.  [Scroll down]  The American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House proposes green economic schemes that should frighten us greatly.  For example, buried on pages 1014-1016 of the bill is the "Monthly Energy Refund."  According to this trick, for those with a gross income that "does not exceed 150 percent of the poverty line ... a direct deposit" of an undisclosed amount of money will be sent "into the eligible household's designated bank account[.]"  On pages 502-503 we find the "Low Income Community Energy Efficiency Program," whereby grants will be issued "to increase the flow of capital and benefits to low income communities, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses and entrepreneurs[.]"

Some Pay, and Some Receive.  The news that the United States has become a two-class society — i.e., half of Americans pay federal income taxes and half don't — has bounced around the media and shocked Americans.  Most people had no knowledge of this appalling economic fact.  Even worse is the reality that 40 percent of Americans receive federal government handouts of cash and valuable benefits.  Those handouts are financed by the people who do pay federal income taxes.

'I Want My Free M.D.'.  The Democrats' reform bill had hardly become law before doctors and insurers began getting calls asking about free health care.  The growing sense of entitlement is disheartening, to say the least.

Obama's Quiet War on Red States.  [Scroll down slowly]  The admonition goes that the poor will always be among us, but today's poor needn't become a permanent underclass, which has happened in big cities, especially those in blue states (think Newark, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Detroit).  These poor — mostly black and Hispanic — are the prisoners of big-city Democratic machines, which, allied with leaders in minority and poor communities, have stymied the "up and out" dynamic that was once a feature of poverty in America.  The poor are always with today's Democrats because in exchange for subsidizing the poor, Democrats get whole blocs of votes in return — votes that perpetuate their political power.

The Welfare State of America.  Even before Obamacare and this year's spending increases take effect, Americans have to accept that our government already has gotten to be as big as the biggest welfare states.  Socialism is not just somebody else's problem anymore.

Why 70 Million Americans Don't Pay Uncle Sam a Dime.  While you struggle to meet your deadline, consider that although the law requires you to file a tax return, more than 70 million of your fellow filers will not owe a single penny to Uncle Sam.  As the latest news from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center shows, a record 47 percent of tax filers will have no federal income tax liability this year.

Redistributing Our Earnings To Freeloaders.  Income tax day, April 15, now divides Americans into two almost equal classes:  those who pay for the services provided by government and the freeloaders.  The percentage of Americans who will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009 has risen to 47%.  That isn't the worst of it.  The bottom 40% not only pay no income tax, but also the government sends them cash or benefits financed by the taxes dutifully paid by those who do pay income tax.

A New Direction.  America is being transformed from a society of independent minded, hard-working individuals to one where government rules all aspects of life.  The transformation is to government dependency where self-reliance used to be the norm.  In Obama's America people actually get smokin' mad when you suggest they should be responsible for their own lives.

The takers weigh down the makers.  Here's a question of vastly more than theoretical importance to current and coming generations of Americans:  How much longer can the U.S. economy continue to produce enough wealth to sustain a growing class of people who depend on government for some or all of their daily necessities?  To pose the question another way:  Are we nearing a point when there are no longer enough taxpayers to support all of the tax consumers in America?

Listen to the Panther.  As Eldridge Cleaver understood, when the individual is crushed, so is his sense of self-respect and self-reliance.  Since LBJ's Great Society initiatives, billions of dollars have been spent augmenting the state in relation to the individual lives of most black Americans.  Is Colbert King happy with the results?  Is socialized medicine as important to the black community as the staggering numbers of children who grow up without a father in the home?

President Obama Makes Poverty Permanent.  If "poverty" is defined as earning less than 75% of other people (or 60%, or whatever number you like) then the poor will always be with us and there is nothing anybody can do to change this.  Omnipotence itself cannot change this.  Yet President Obama thinks he can. ... How?  His administration will create a new index of poverty, one which slides upwards as all income increases.  This guarantees "poverty" will always be with us.  This act of will creates an eternal class of the "poor" from which there can be no relief.

Homeless numbers up in Montgomery area.  [Scroll down]  Not everyone is homeless by accident or wants to live in a shelter.  "I became homeless by choice," said Matlock, who earns $30 for every five hours he holds business signs on street corners.  He carries with him an identification — a "Homeless ID" card he received in North Carolina.

ObamaCare and American Power:  The United States currently spends roughly as much on defense ($661 billion in fiscal year 2009) as the rest of the world combined.  But that's a pittance compared to what we spend on three major entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Let It Burn.  If Republicans take control of the House and Senate, and if they repeal the health care bill, then they will not be able (or likely even try) to reform Medicare or Social Security.  These programs alone will bankrupt our nation.  Yet they are untouchable because a large number of Americans have come to depend upon these benefits.  They have become unknowingly hooked.

What It's Really About:  Insurance Reform Was Never About Health Care.  Past liberal administrations began the march toward socialization, expanding government control and provision, demonizing capitalism, and shifting responsibility away from individuals and onto government.  ObamaCare will take its place in the liberal cavalcade of massive government growth initiatives alongside Welfare, Social Security, and a multitude of entitlement programs.  Democrat Senator Dick Durbin said the massive taxes and vast expansion of government required to run the program would simply be, "The cost... of having the kind of America we want to have."  What kind of America was he referring to?

The high cost of sheltering a single homeless family in D.C.:  According to a study released today [3/25/2010] by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and reported by USA Today, it's cheaper to put homeless families in real homes than it is to house them in shelters.

Welfare Un-Reform.  Normally the job vacancy rate goes down after a recession, as the job market stabilizes.  But January, the latest reported month, showed an 11% spike in unfilled jobs.  Vacancies are now at 2.1% — the highest since February 2009, the Labor Department says.  That means people are not taking jobs as expected at this point in the recovery.  Why?  Because many don't have to — thanks in part to 99 weeks and counting of unemployment benefits.

Hope and Change ... the Constitution.  [Scroll down slowly]  We ignore history's numerous examples of how good intentions produce bad results.  Almost 50 years ago, another "transformative" president used government to launch a War on Poverty.  But for many welfare recipients and their families, poverty became "structural."  People became dependent on government.  After the government finally placed some restrictions on welfare, dependency declined.  Much to the surprise of those who denounced welfare reform as cruel, people changed their behavior.

Socialism Vs. Capitalism:  Illustrated on Film.  [Scroll down]  Governments don't produce, they consume.  They take from the people who create things and convert some of those resources into "benefits".  These benefits are, more often than not, bribes to ease us into letting them keep spending our money like mad.  At some point, a long time ago, they stopped caring about wanted and started telling us what was good for us.  They began taking more and more tax dollars and bribing the least productive citizens so they'd have voters who can override the productive citizens if they complained too much.

Reflections on the Revolution in America:  The present attempt to remake America is the effort of the liberal well-to-do — highly educated at mostly private universities, nursed on three decades of postmodern education, either with inherited wealth or earning top salaries, lifestyles of privilege indistinguishable from those they decry as selfish, and immune from the dictates they impose on others. ... They are all battling on behalf of "them," the poorer half of America, currently in need of some sort of housing, education, food, or legal subsidy, whom the above mentioned elite, in the way they live, send their children to school, socialize, and vacation so studiously avoid. ... Note well the term "poor."  These are not Dickensian or Joads poor, but largely Americans who by the standards of the 1940s would be considered lucky.

Pelosi's Republic:  If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.

The Land of Entitlements.  [Scroll down]  To put this in context, one must realize that there are no Medicare recipients alive today who have firsthand knowledge of being without Medicare while elderly.  Some may remember their parents or grandparents surviving well into old age without Medicare, but not themselves.  Very few alive today remember a time without Social Security. Within the space of a human lifespan, our society has become a culture conditioned to accept (and expect) entitlements as the norm without questioning the consequences.  It has been a very effective strategy to enlarge government.

Free Citizens or Tail-Wagging Pets?  The American people are not animals.  We are not content merely to be fed, walked, and taken care of.  Nor do we take joy in fetching sticks and sitting, heeling, and rolling over.  As freedom-loving human beings, we have needs far greater than food stamps, welfare checks, unemployment benefits, and government-run health care. ... Most liberals fail to understand and acknowledge that by providing for all of one's physical wants, government destroys the deeper meaning and purpose of man's life.

New USDA Effort Targets Link between Obesity and Food Stamps.  A growing number of local programs from Boston to San Diego are trying to make healthier foods more appealing and affordable for low-income families — the population of Americans who are most reliant on food stamps, and most likely to be obese.

Denying the Truth at all Costs.  The facts are well known.  Government at all levels has grown faster than any other segment of the economy.  Government, also, pays far more than corresponding workers in the private sector and has lavish benefit packages unmatched by any private worker.  As the Cato Institute detailed in their January, 2010 Tax & Budget Bulletin # 59, the compensation scales and benefits of government are simply unsustainable.  They cannot continue; there must be an adjustment.  But blocking that "adjustment" is the primary goal of labor unions.

Fiscal Death by Welfare.  The welfare state is killing our nation.  Today entitlement spending makes up nearly half of our budget.  Long term, we know that there will be no way to pay off our unfunded obligations — we will go bankrupt.  There will be three options ultimately, though ultimately can come quite suddenly:  default, hyperinflation or abolition of the welfare state.

American reliance on government at all-time high.  Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.  Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.

The Growth of Dependency on Government Threatens the Future of American Democracy.  From virtually the first day of his presidency, Barack Obama and his top deputies have advanced programs and initiatives that deepen and expand American citizens' dependency on government.  From new federal programs designed to boost economic activity to health care reform that could place the U.S. government at the center of the nation's health care system, the central thrust of policy since January 2009 has been to increase Americans' daily dependency on Washington.  However, the rapid expansion of dependency creating programs did not begin with Barack Obama's inauguration.

The state and local governments are actively trying to get more people dependent on them.
 Food bank will qualify applicants for stamps.  Houston's food bank will begin helping qualify eligible Texans for food stamps today [3/1/2010] under special authority from federal officials designed to shorten long wait times.  The waiver will allow food banks in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth to handle food stamp applications directly.  Food bank officials in those cities will have access to state computers to make sure applicants are eligible and not already receiving food assistance.

The Grasshopper and the Ants.  Once upon a time, there was a happy-go-lucky grasshopper who lived only to have fun.  All through the long summer days, he would sing and dance, and laugh at the industrious ants who were busily preparing for winter.  But then cruel winter came, and the grasshopper was starving.

Greece and the Welfare State in Ruins.  Every advanced society, including the United States, has a welfare state.  Though details differ, their purposes are similar:  to support the unemployed, poor, disabled and aged.  All welfare states face similar problems:  burgeoning costs as populations age; an overreliance on debt financing; and pressures to reduce borrowing that create pressures to cut welfare spending.  High debt and the welfare state are at odds.  It's an open question whether the collision will cause social and economic turmoil.

The welfare state's death spiral.  What we're seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state.  This isn't Greece's problem alone, and that's why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery.  Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect.  Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven't fully covered with taxes.  The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies.

Record numbers receive food stamps as USDA turns blind eye to recipients' finances.  President Obama's latest proposed budget includes $72.5 billion for the SNAP program, a 30 percent increase over $55.6 [billion] spent in 2009.  The program is on track to double in size by 2011 — as recently as 2008 it accounted for only $37.6 billion.  Since the start of the recession in late 2007, food-stamp rolls jumped from 27 million individuals to 38 million, or 13 percent of the total U.S. population.  The federal government hasn't distributed food aid to this many people since the Great Depression.

Food-stamp fraud:  Detroit-area stores swipe millions from aid program.  Fraud in the government program that helps the poor has added up to nearly $100 million since 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.  It's a fraction of the more than $40 billion spent to feed people each year, but the crime has become a brazen way for some small stores to literally swipe cash from the U.S. Treasury, especially in the Detroit area.

Ignorance is strength and...
 Food Stamps Are Not Welfare.  With the help of the statist media, Big Government is making progress in its drive to corrode our culture to the point that dependence on coercively funded handouts is both socially acceptable and ubiquitous.

New data:  40 percent in U.S. lack high-speed Internet access at home.  Roughly 40 percent of Americans do not have high-speed Internet access at home, according to new Commerce Department figures...

The Editor says...
 So what?  Some people have computers and some do not.  The same is true of television.  This kind of inequality is not considered a problem except in socialist countries.

Michelle Obama, Liberal Government and Obesity:  First Lady, Michelle Obama, has decided to take a whack at solving the American obesity epidemic.  Splendid.  She should start by looking at one of the biggest roots of the problem:  liberal government and its most favorite project of the past 40 years, the welfare state.

The Dead Road of Socialism.  It is no news to anyone that the world can often be unfair, that families lack the things they need and that people suffer and die unnecessarily in ways that could be avoided. ... The government centralized approach cannot be defended on the grounds of efficiency, because government programs are notoriously inefficient. ... The only defense for government programs is that they are comprehensive and mandatory.  People can choose whether to contribute to charity, but they cannot choose to pay their taxes.  This brings the element of wealth redistribution to the table, transforming voluntary contributions into mandatory entitlements.

Confessed child murderer spends days in downtown Lauderdale park.  Gary Kerpan confessed years ago to snatching a 12-year-old girl, raping her, stabbing her and killing her.  Now that he's out of prison, he hangs out in Fort Lauderdale's Stranahan Park.  He is one of Fort Lauderdale's homeless.

Nanny State Gone Wild.  I can tell you what most fiscally responsible parents are thinking when they hear the feds "taking care" of everyone else's adult "children" by confiscating their tax dollars and forcing private companies to comply:  You've got to be kidding me.  Yes, Virginia, there are still some of us left who believe our children shouldn't depend on a government-manufactured umbilical cord as they approach their third decade on earth.

What Suckers We Are.  Still paying full price for your kids' meals at school?  The government currently provides free or reduced-price lunch, breakfast or both for nearly 60% of all school-age children nationwide.  Households with incomes of up to 185% of poverty level are eligible.  In Philadelphia public schools, 72% of students have access to a universal feeding program — regardless of income.  Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey wants to nationalize that program.

Obama Begins His Assault on Your Life Savings.  The welfare state and your life savings are two cars heading down a one-lane road in opposite directions.  One must yield, or there will be a crash.  For Americans who believe in the old-fashioned virtues of hard work, self reliance and respect for private property, the solution is obvious.  The welfare state must yield.  For politicians who believe in the welfare state and redistributing wealth, the solution is equally obvious.  Your savings must yield.

Recession Shatters Myth of Poverty Causing Crime.  The sound you should be hearing right now is that of a myth exploding.  And given the long duration and wide acceptance of this myth, the noise should indeed be deafening.  But, no, as when many cherished notions of the left are revealed as fallacious, the current reaction is a hushed, embarrassed silence.

Texas' program for food stamps called the worst.  Texas has the worst-performing food stamp program in the nation, the federal director for food assistance told state officials here Tuesday.  It ranks last among the 50 states and U.S. territories in processing food stamp applications and also does a poor job getting eligible low-income people to apply, Kevin Concannon, a U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary, said in an earlier meeting with reporters.

The Editor says...
 That's great news!  Why should the state encourage people to apply for welfare?

Obama to Spend $10.3 Trillion on Welfare.  Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent vast sums on welfare or aid to the poor; however, the aggregate cost of this assistance is largely unknown because the spending is fragmented into myriad programs. ... According to President Obama's budget projections, federal and state welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years (FY 2009 to FY 2018).  This spending will equal $250,000 for each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four.

Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades.  With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.  It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys.

Midnight in the food-stamp economy.  At 11 p.m. on the last day of the month, shoppers flock to the nearest Walmart.  They load their carts with food and household items and wait for the midnight hour.  That's when food stamp credits are loaded on their electronic benefits transfer cards.

Crisis of the Government Party.  Democrats are the Party of Government.  They feed it, and it feeds them.  The larger government grows, the more agencies that are created, the more bureaucrats who are hired, the more people who become beneficiaries, the more deeply entrenched in power the Party of Government becomes.  At the local, state and federal level, there are 19 million to 20 million government employees.  And if one takes only Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and earned income tax credits, we are talking of scores of millions who depend on government checks for the necessities of their daily life.

Obama's $250 Bonus Turns Social Security into Welfare.  Since Social Security recipients will get no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) next year, President Obama wants to give each of them $250, a move supported in principle by the Republican House and Senate leadership.  However, this move is not only unjustified; it makes a fundamental change to Social Security's structure and starts the process of converting the program from an earned benefit funded by a worker's own contributions to a welfare program.

'Welcome to Obamaville' Sign At Homeless Tent City, Media Mum.  A sign reading "Welcome to Obamaville Colorado's Fastest Growing Community" appeared at a homeless tent city in Colorado Springs this week.  You probably didn't hear about it because outside of two Colorado television stations nobody found this newsworthy.

It is a Sad Time in America.  For me, I'm not sad because an African American man was elected President.  I am sad because I do not believe in a single thing this new President believes in.  I am sad because so many Americans did not bother to investigate this man and his beliefs.  I am sad because so much was swept under the carpet for this man.  I am sad because now more than ever people will not want to work.  They will become increasingly lazy and dependent on the government.

Trickle Down Poverty.  Instead of approaching the economy in a way that opens a door through which the poor can use their God-given talents to better their circumstances, Obama plans a state-run economy that will result in trickle down poverty.  And for all his talk about "spreading the wealth around," our president is really poised to spread dependence on a discombobulated bureaucracy.

Obama the Racist?  The first black president's policies marginalize blacks.  It is the cruelest sort of racism, as it robs blacks of hope instead of inspiring it.  Blacks were left with the hope that Obama would redistribute money from creators of wealth to those who would gladly take something for nothing.  The president, voted for by overwhelming numbers of blacks and guilty whites, has likely been the most destructive force in racial politics since his fellow racist Democrat Bull Connor.  And what Obama seeks for blacks — socialism, or the leveling of the playing field — has not benefited blacks anywhere on the planet.


Many homeless people are insane and should be locked up

...and they were, until a court decision in 1972 (Lessard v. Schmidt) set many of them free, based on a concern for the bums' civil liberties, which the liberal do-gooders considered to be more important than public safety. 

The Killers Within.  A time bomb began ticking in the mid-1970s, when the psychiatric and mental health professions went politically correct and identified the mentally ill as "victims" who required advocates.  While patients in general do need assistance, the activists turned caring into political action that changed the American cityscape and endangered our well-being. Announcing in the mid-1970s that confining mental patients violated their civil rights, a cadre set to work to release as many patients as they could, resulting in the huge homeless phenomenon of the 1980s that remains with us now.  Suddenly the streets of major cities and small towns hosted a permanent population of vagrants who harassed passersby and businesses.

Mental Illness and Mass Murder.  For the last three years, I've been trying to find a publisher for a book about the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and the destructive effects on our society that it has caused.  I keep getting told that no one is interested in the topic.  The tragedy in Tucson on Saturday — like dozens of other such incidents over the last three decades involving mentally ill persons who made headlines — is the reason that people should be interested.

Deranged homeless man goes on violent rampage in Zuccotti Park.  A deranged homeless man who has been squatting among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan went on a violent, early-morning rampage yesterday [11/3/2011], cursing incoherently and kicking down tents.  The only thing that could stop Jeremy Clinch from his Godzilla-like rampage was a left hook to the face delivered by a paranoid fellow protester who claimed to be an ex-Turkish diplomat — and charged that his assailant was carrying out a plot hatched by Mayor Bloomberg.

74-year-old fatally beaten with baseball bat inside a Wal-Mart.  A 74-year-old man was fatally beaten with a baseball bat Tuesday [11/1/2011] inside a Lakewood Wal-Mart in what authorities believe was an unprovoked attack by a homeless man.

Homeless suspect held in fatal assault on man.  A homeless man with a history of violence has been arrested for allegedly attacking a stranger on Market Street who died hours after being assaulted, San Francisco police said Monday [1/18/2010].

The Real Cause of the Arizona Killings.  Serving as chairman of a downtown advancement committee in the early and mid-'80s, I assigned a subcommittee to make an inventory of the homeless population that was thwarting our effort to lure people back to the city core after 25 years of white flight and a negative image that seemed permanent.  The homeless were assaulting passersby and congregating wherever they chose — and the police would not act.  The report was startling:  of the 85 homeless in the downtown area, 80 were mental patients.  And the reason the police could not act to control their behavior with arrests was also shocking.  Concomitant with new rules passed in 1978 that released the mentally ill into the streets across America, a nationally linked cadre of activist law professors managed to have vagrancy and loitering laws expunged.

A Predictable Tragedy in Arizona.  A 2007 study by the U.S. Justice Department found that 56% of state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners, and 64% of local jail inmates suffer from mental illnesses.  A 2008 study out of the University of Pennsylvania that examined murders committed in Indiana between 1990 and 2002 found that approximately 10% of the murders were committed by individuals with serious mental illnesses.  There are about 16,000 homicides a year in this country.  Using the Indiana study as a guide, roughly 1,600 of them are likely committed by people with serious mental illnesses. ... State governments have been very effective in emptying the hospitals in an effort to save money but remarkably ineffective in providing treatment for seriously mentally ill individuals living in the community.

Obama's Tucson degradation:  [Scroll down]  Beginning in the 1960s, liberals stressed that the mentally ill should not be institutionalized against their will.  Many people who suffer from serious psychological disorders are allowed to roam our streets.  They cannot be committed to a psychiatric ward to get necessary help and treatment without their consent.  Most of the homeless are in this sad situation.  Many of them are not destitute because of dire economic circumstances.  Instead, they are plagued by severe mental illnesses.  Thousands have died because of the callous — and negligent — policies of deinstitutionalization.

The Real Danger of the Madman.  The horrific shooting in Arizona has brought several cauldrons to a boil, but it has also called some new attention to a rather old fact:  in modern society, those with potentially dangerous mental illnesses are subject to extremely little governmental control.  In addition to the direct hazards posed by this state of affairs, most conservatives are well aware that it is a major contributing factor to any number of other serious social difficulties, including the "homeless problem."

Outwitting Lethal Government Policies.  Over the past fifty years, at least a half-million Americans, and perhaps many more, have died prematurely due to ill-designed and badly executed liberal programs.  The causes, as I reveal in detail in Death by Liberalism, range from the criminal justice "reforms" of the 1960s, which triggered a crime wave that that killed up to 268,000 Americans, to government-mandated fuel standards responsible for up to 125,000 lives.  At least a thousand people are murdered each year by the derelict insane, with many deinstitutionalized lunatics dying as well, giving us a total of as many as 70,000 deaths.

Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill.  In 1998, a census states that 238,800 people in America's jails are considered mentally ill.  In truth, this number is likely to be much higher because the census was conducted by jail wardens who cannot properly diagnose a person as mentally ill or not.  The cost for caring for a mentally ill person in a psychiatric hospital is estimated to be $40,000 per year.  A mentally ill prison inmate will cost the government approximately $60,000.

Mandating Treatment for the Mentally Ill.  In 1972, this watershed case [Lessard v. Schmidt, 349 F. Supp 1078 (1972)], brought on by civil libertarian lawyers, declared Wisconsin's civil commitment statute unconstitutional.  Nationwide, states followed the Lessard decision and commitment statutes changed so that commitment became more difficult, and tragedies involving individuals with severe psychiatric disorders increased significantly.

Deinstitutionalizing the Mentally Ill.  [Scroll down]  The solution to the problem of the Larry Hogues and the Christopher Battistes lies not in communities already deeply frayed by the homeless mentally ill, but in the reconstruction of the total care institutions for the long-term treatment of the seriously and violently mentally ill.  For patients with serious drug-aggravated mental illness, intensive long-term treatment is the best hope for improvement.  Sending such patients back into the community not only ignores their medical needs, but destroys the public life of the city as well.

The Crisis That No One Talks About.  [Scroll down]  I've read that in 1960, there were about 550,000 people in mental hospitals in the U.S.; today there are about 100,000 — even though our population has grown by almost 50%. ... Sadly, much of that drop in mental hospital patients wasn't because the system is doing so much better of a job.  We can see where at least some of those people went — suffering squalid, filthy, and miserable lives under overpasses, pushing all their worldly possessions around in shopping carts, begging in our streets, catching tuberculosis and pneumonia.


Freedom or slavery?  You make the call.  Health-care reform?  Let's call it what it is — theft.  Or if you prefer, "redistribution of wealth."  The problem is, no matter what you call it, too many Americans are in favor of requisitioning money from other Americans to pay for the health care of strangers.  And they don't care if it is legal or not.  That's because most Americans have not bothered to educate themselves about the principles on which our country was founded, nor about the rocks on which it will founder if it abandons those principles.

12 Policies that Undermine Civil Society.  [#1]  Massive Expansion of the Welfare State.  Within his first two years in office, President Obama will have increased spending on means-tested programs for the poor by 30 percent, and over the next decade he will spend $10.3 trillion on welfare programs alone.  These are programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, housing, and Head Start that are targeted at low-income people.  In addition to increased spending, the President and Congress are widening eligibility for the programs so that more people will qualify.  Government-sponsored welfare programs do little to actually help move families from a position of dependence to self-sufficiency.

The Fruits of Labor.  We now have a government that considers it public policy to take from those who are productive and give to those who they believe are less productive (or unproductive).  Although this is nothing new with respect to politics, it is more blatant now than at any other time in our history.

Freedom is Hard Work.  When wealth redistribution occurs in the false name of compassion, liberty is damaged for everybody.  Meanwhile, the seeds of class warfare, resentment and discontent, are sown from coast to coast.  The very fact that we have a literal "dependency class", a class that is convinced it will perish if not directly supported by government action, is a national outrage.

Workers Against Lazy Non-producers United Together.  We can no longer sit back and let our government spend our hard earned money on those who choose to be non-producers of society.  We must stand united and let our voices be our weapon.  We The People must remind our elected officials, that those who have put them in office, can & will take them away. ... Non-producers will no longer be given life and prosperity but forced to earn it as we have!

ACORN's Calling.  The government has a new web site for Lifeline Assistance, a program to provide free phone service to "income-eligible consumers." ... The rules for being covered aren't all that onerous.  One must be a participant in a state or federal assistance program such as Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps of Medicaid, OR one's total household income must be at or below 135 percent of the poverty guidelines (that is, about $28,000) and the applicant must have a valid postal street address in the United States (sorry, no p.o. boxes).  If you're a resourceful ACORN worker and you don't meet those qualifications, heck, the application is just a piece of paper and who's going to check?

How Liberalism Exploits The Vulnerable.  Not knowing that she was on camera, this "community organizer" gave away the dirtiest of the dirty secrets of the left.  Herein lies the explanation of how and why major segments of America, particularly in urban areas, upon becoming increasingly liberal over the past several decades, have become more lawless, more hopeless, and more helpless.  While claiming to "help the little guy," liberalism has a vested interest in keeping the "little guy" oppressed and dependent.  Only in such a state can he fulfill his intended role as a "resource" of the liberal machine.

These Dis-United States.  The liberal/progressive movement has convinced modern man that to satisfy his material needs it is not necessary to labor exhaustingly in pursuit of said needs; but much more beneficial to modern man to simply reallocate resources from those who can afford to do so.  The foundations of the welfare state having been laid, the free market struggles to provide for its legitimate members as well as those of a lesser inclination.  The mixed economy may go on for years before the weight of redistributive legislation finally brings the golden goose to a prone position.  The tipping point, however, has finally been reached.  Better than 50% of the class of lesser inclination now feed at the trough of Federal largesse.

The Real Problem With ACORN.  [Scroll down]  Eventually I soured on welfare in a number of ways.  Even with the women it was doing no good.  They had no sense of self-sufficiency.  It was just a sophisticated form of begging.  They would develop a sense of entitlement so that "getting ahead" simply meant making more and more strident demands on more and more people.  And that's what Wade Rathke seems to have picked up on.  He said on the Fox show that when funding ran out for welfare rights he moved to Little Rock to start his own community organizing effort, based on that same sense of endless grievance.  ACORN became skilled at moral gangsterism, shaking down governments and corporations for larger and larger amounts, making ever more ridiculous demands.

The $450.00 purse.  Theirs weren't the only spending shocks, when the Obama stimulus checks arrived.  Students, who had attended every day of the first two weeks and had filled out their daily timesheets, and placed correct addresses on their W-2 forms, received a check for $640.00.  Cash in hand, one-hundred and twenty-five low income, low achieving, adult high school students went on a government furnished spending spree.

Spreading the Wealth.  When Barack Obama said he wanted to "spread the wealth around," he meant it.  A new study from Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation estimates that Obama's policies would spend $10.3 trillion on welfare programs over the next decade.

Obama Will Spend More on Welfare in the Next Year Than Bush Spent on Entire Iraq War.  As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama's proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush's war spending by more than $260 billion.

Welfare Reform after Ten Years:  A State-by-State Analysis.  In an age when "reform" seems a tired slogan that seldom delivers what it promises, why did welfare reform apparently work so well?  PRWORA replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a national entitlement program, with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a collection of block grants for the states.  As a result, states gained greater flexibility in implementing reform:  They could implement time limits, work requirements, and family cap restrictions to encourage self-sufficiency.

Rand study: It ain't the Big Macs that make the poor fat.  The whole song and dance is that eating healthy is expensive.  It is not.  My mother made do raising 5 kids on barely above minimum wage pay.  A study by the Rand Corporation found that far from preying on the poor, fast-food outlets avoid those neighborhoods because of crime and well, the customers don't have much money.

Buffalo named third-poorest city in U.S..  Detroit is the poorest city in America, with 33.3 percent of its residents below the poverty level.  Cleveland comes second at 30.5 percent, and Buffalo is the only other major city above 30 percent.  Anchorage has the lowest poverty rate among the nation's major cities, defined as those with populations of 250,000 or more.  Just 6.4 percent of Anchorage's residents were living in poverty a year ago.

Subsidized Health Care:  a view from the exam room.  When serving in the Rural Health Center in my community, my colleagues and I offered free or discounted care for a large number of patients.  Many were covered by Medi-Cal or one of dozens of state programs paid for by the taxpayers of California.  The following items were commonly seen on patients or carried by their dependent children, who were also covered by subsidized programs:
 •  Cell phones and "BlackBerry" PDAs, including just-released models with a price tag of $400, plus an ongoing monthly service fee of $65-$150
 •  iPods and portable DVD players
 •  GameBoys and handheld electronic games
 •  Artificial fingernails requiring maintenance every two weeks...
 •  Elaborate braided hair weaves, $300 per session plus frequent maintenance
 •  Custom-designed body art...

Peanut Farmer Allergies.  Many of America's largest cities have been controlled by the Democrats for decades and now lay in ruins.  Look at the condition of cities such as my beloved hometown Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis and so many others.  Our cities are sometimes as violent as what many of our soldiers face in war.  Industry and jobs have moved to the suburbs for any number of reasons.  And our fearless leader is using the most devastated cities in America as models for his hope and change.  Phenomenally stupid.

An Ownership Society No More.  If you are not in need of a government subsidy to find a place to live, listen and heed.  Do not, whatever you do, rent an apartment in a complex that permits government-subsidized housing.  You do not want to live there.  You do not want to be living around a bunch of people who cannot carry their own load.  The crime rates will be high and the place will quickly fall into disrepair.

The Myth that Liberals Care About the Poor:  Almost every program the Left supports to "help" the poor in this country is surreptitiously designed to de-motivate them and keep them dependent on the government.  The Left saps their will to work with welfare and food stamps, the Left reduces their income and puts them out of jobs by encouraging illegal aliens to enter the country, and the Left fights voucher programs that would allow poverty-stricken students to go to the same schools as the rich Americans.  Liberals incessantly ramble on about how much they care about the poor — and they do, the same way a Venus Flytrap cares about a random bug that happens to fly into its maw.

Welfare in a Bad Way.  What most Americans identify as government "welfare" are payments to single mothers, food stamps and (perhaps) Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor.  But that's not the half of it.  Since 1960, government has changed radically.  Then, 52 percent of federal spending went for defense, 26 percent for "payments for individuals" — the welfare state.  By 2008, 61 percent consisted of "payments for individuals," 21 percent for defense.  Social Security and Medicare — programs for the elderly — represented the biggest share:  $1 trillion in 2008.

ACORN Scandal Has Deep Roots.  ACORN is wedded to stale thinking that all too often makes people dependent, crushes responsibility, creativity and our very natures.  And the Obama administration only plans to continue to increase welfare spending, ensuring that the system that gave birth to ACORN and its inexcusable conduct will continue to thrive.

U.S. Poverty Rate Rises to 11-Year High as Recession Takes Toll.  The U.S. poverty rate rose to the highest level in 11 years in 2008 and household incomes declined as the first full year of the recession took its toll, government data showed.  The poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent from 12.5 percent, and the number of people classified as poor jumped by 2.6 million to 39.8 million, according to a Census Bureau report released today [9/10/2009].

Socialism is really cannibalism.  When I work, I use up hours of my life... my limited, mortal, human, physical life.  The money I am paid represents the life I expended to earn it.  My pay — my wealth — is my labor.  It is the expenditure of some of my body's short, precious life on earth.  So when someone takes my money, they steal my hours of labor.  They consume not only the fruits of my labor, but my labor itself, that labor which is the very expenditure of my life.  When someone loots and consumes the money I have earned, they consume the part of my life devoted to producing what hey have taken.

Manufactured Healthcare Crisis.  Medicaid is funded roughly 50/50 by federal and state governments.  As an essentially free benefit to the poor, Medicaid has no tax associated with it, so it is covered by state and federal income tax revenues — that's you and me...   In 2006, Medicaid spending alone totaled $314 billion.  For perspective, this is roughly equivalent to the baseline defense budget (i.e. excluding war spending like for Iraq/Afghanistan).  State Medicaid programs are the largest single recipient of all federal grants, comprising 43 percent of the total.  In 2008, federal Medicaid and Medicare spending totaled $676 billion.  Comprising only 2 percent of the federal budget in 1967, these two programs today consume 23 percent of total federal spending.  This is the largest component of the federal budget, even exceeding total wartime outlays for national defense.

The More Given, the Less Earned.  The more the state gives to its citizens, the less they have to earn.  That is the basic concept of the welfare state — you receive almost everything you need without having to earn any of it.  About half of Americans now pay no federal income tax — but they receive all government benefits just as if they had paid for, i.e., earned, them.  America became a great civilization thanks to a culture based on the value of having to earn almost everything an American got in life.  As it abandons this value, it will become a mediocre civilization.  And eventually it will not be America.  It will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one.

Poverty?  It's just a lie the Left uses to destroy the middle class.  The propaganda gives it away.  Those ridiculous claims about abolishing child poverty are a huge warning sign.  Why 'child' poverty, by the way?  It's partly to make us all go gooey and say 'aah'.  It's also because the children in our most deprived households have no responsibility at all for the conditions they live in.  But the Government does, by encouraging the creation of single-parent families on welfare.

How Poor Are America's Poor?  According to the US Census Bureau, 36 million Americans are "living in poverty."  Can this alarming claim really be true?  The simple answer is: No.

Sex Offenders Live in Village Under Miami Bridge.  No, it's not an adventurous form of urban camping or a recession-fueled shantytown.  Instead, there is a distinctly permanent feeling to this scruffy encampment.  And it's clear many of its residents don't want anything to do with inquisitive reporters.

NYC sending homeless to Georgia, South Carolina.  New York City is buying one-way plane tickets for homeless families to leave the city, and dozens of the families have landed in Georgia and South Carolina.  The New York Times is reporting that it's part of a Bloomberg administration program to keep the homeless out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family.

Mayor Defends One-Way Tickets for Homeless.  Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended a city program to send homeless families out of New York on planes, trains and buses on Wednesday [7/29/2009], saying it "saves the taxpayers of New York City an enormous amount of money."  Speaking in the Blue Room in City Hall to announce a new finance commissioner, Mr. Bloomberg was asked if the program simply shifts the homelessness program to a different place, as some critics of the program have suggested.

Massachusetts is housing homeless in motels.  A record number of families are being put up in motels in Massachusetts.  High unemployment and the rising number of home foreclosures is the reason the state is taking this action.  Housing Massachusetts' homeless is costing tax payers around $2 million per month.  It costs an average of $85 per night to have families, including nearly 1000 children, stay in motels.

Obama, the remaking of America, the reverie for a police state.  Nationalized health care is only the latest page in the ongoing saga of U.S. president Barak (sic) Obama's attempt to remake/reinvent America into a socialist utopia.  Without fail, an ever-vigilant, all-powerful central government with police state powers will also arise to assist in tending to the "needs" of the dependent population.  Almost unbelievably, a recent poll taken in Germany confirms that once dependency is bred into a people, the longing for security becomes so strong that a police state is preferred to the uncertainties of a free society.  This is a stark warning to Americans.

What a concept!
 Gov. Schwarzenegger Proposes Eliminating Welfare.  Faced with a $21.3 billion budget deficit and proposed tax hikes, California voters rejected the tax increases, essentially telling their state government to get it's act together and quit driving the state over a financial abyss.  In response, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has come up with a proposal that has the "mainstream" media and other Leftists swallowing their snuff.

California contemplates ultimate reform — no welfare.  Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare?  That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.

5 Character Flaws That Are Destroying America's Future.  [#1]  Lack Of Personal Responsibility:  As a society, we encourage a "victimhood mentality" and an overweening government that never met an issue it didn't want to dive into with both feet; so we shouldn't be surprised that so many Americans expect to be rewarded for failure.

Uncle Sam's First Name Isn't 'Daddy'.  America did not become great by being a permanent daddy who keeps children ignorant and supports their every need cradle to grave.  Such a father would not simply be misguided; he would be evil.  We still have a republic.  If we intend to keep it, a great number of Americans need to give up the idea that Daddy will take care of them.

Poor in Colorado may get free phones.  Thousands of low-income Coloradans reliant on public assistance could get a free cellphone under a plan before the state Public Utilities Commission.  If approved, the plan by TracFone Wireless in Miami would make Colorado the 17th state it has settled into with free cell service for the indigent, a form of wireless welfare that proponents say taps into one of the last untapped markets for the telecom technology.

Stimulus funds to aid homeless.  The U.S. expects to send $1.5 billion in stimulus money today to hundreds of communities around the country to prevent homelessness, including $1 million for Fresno to dismantle tent cities and move residents into privately owned apartments.

Cap-and-Tax:  Government vs. America.  There is still time to stop the legislative monstrosity known as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill before the Senate approves it.  But for that to happen, Americans must learn how bad it is. ... As noted, the bill contains a hidden provision establishing unemployment benefits for up to three full years for workers displaced as a result of this "job creations" bill, as well as health insurance premium subsidies and $1,500 each for job search and relocation expenses — all at taxpayers' expense.

Bureaucrat scuffs dream of homeless shoe shiner.  He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city.  When he gets up from his cardboard mattress, he puts on a coat and tie.  It's a reminder of how he has turned things around.  In fact, until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years.  But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month's rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit.

Social service advocates predict disaster if budget cut.  Armageddon, disaster, nightmare, obscene, devastating.  Those are just a few of the words some people use to describe the fallout if deep cuts in Illinois' budget become a reality.  "This budget would be a disaster.  We are talking about decimating programs that help the most vulnerable," said Diana Rauner, spokeswoman for the Ounce of Prevention Fund, a poverty relief organization.

NYC Turns Luxury Units Into Shelters For Homeless.  There's controversy swirling around how much New York City is paying to rent luxury condos for homeless families. ... By all accounts it's the nicest homeless shelter in the city and some non-homeless neighbors are feeling pretty inhospitable.  "The apartments are beautiful.  They're living better than a lot of people around here and they don't have to pay for it," neighbor Maria Brown said.  When the building went up the idea was to sell the units, some of them for more than $300,000.  But now, even though apartments sit empty, you can't even rent them.

Mayor Bloomberg to homeless: Don't get too comfy in luxury condos.  Don't get too comfortable!  That was Mayor Bloomberg's message to dozens of lucky homeless families who scored a posh pad at a luxury condo that has been turned into a homeless shelter in Brooklyn.  "We're not going to let people just sit there.  This is a transition thing.  We want to move them out," Bloomberg said Friday [6/5/2009].  "And if they say, 'Oh, I love this here, I don't want to try something else,' I'm sorry, that's not the whole intent here."

'Poverty' in America:  Some material hardship does exist in America, but it is quite limited in severity and scope.  According to the government's own data, the typical person defined as "poor" by the Census has cable or satellite TV, air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player or VCR, and two color TVs.  Three quarters of these "poor" own a car and nearly a third have two or more cars.

Populists equalize poverty.  To be sure, there are some very rich people in America who earn and possess hundreds or thousands of times what poorer people earn or possess.  But the poor in this country are only relatively poor.  We have no abject poverty.  On the contrary, America's "poor" have cars, TVs, appliances, computers, $200 basketball shoes and own their own homes.  Their lifestyle would be the envy of most of the world's population.  As long as there's relative wealth, there will always be relative poverty.

This Boomer Isn't Going to Apologize.  I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old, and I can say firsthand that if boomer parents have anything for which to be sorry it's for rearing a generation of pampered kids who've been chauffeured around to soccer leagues since they were 6.  This is a generation that has come to regard rising affluence as a basic human right, because that is all it has ever known — until now.  Today's high-school and college students think of iPods, designer cellphones and $599 lap tops as entitlements.

A Simple, Inescapable Fact:  If we continually enlarge the size and scope of the Federal government, already the largest dispenser of money in the world, it is not rocket science to forecast that every scoundrel in the world will be looking for ways to game the system or to steal money outright.

Liberal Fantasyland.  From 1959 to 1964, the poverty rate dropped every single year, from 22.4% to 19.0%.  After that, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared War on Poverty.  And indeed, the poverty rate continued to decline, reaching 12.8% by 1968.  But despite the War on Poverty continuing throughout, the poverty rate sort of stalled in the 12-15% range.  It would climb back above 12.8% by 1980, and stay there through 1997, when President Clinton ended Welfare.  In 2006 it was 12.3%, below where it was when Welfare ended and about where it was in 1968.

Healthcare Crusaders Out To Plunder System.  The number of uninsured people is grossly misleading.  Just because you are uninsured doesn't mean you have no access to medical care.  And just because you are insured under universal systems doesn't mean you will receive care.  If you don't think the administration is parlaying the crisis angle, then you must have missed the feigned urgency in Obama's declarations that "reform" must be completed this year.

In Washington, beggars can be choosers.
 Let Them Eat Arugula.  Last month, Michelle Obama visited Miriam's Kitchen, which serves the homeless in Washington, D.C. ... But the first lady's visit wasn't just about the needs of the homeless; it was also very much about the food itself.  In a Washington Post article covering the visit, one Miriam's Kitchen official explained, "If anyone brings us donuts, Steve [the chef] throws them away. ... It is not good food for our guests.  We care too much to give them anything but the best.  Steve wants our guests to have the same experience as if they were paying $30 for the meal."

The Editor says...
 If you want to consider freeloading homeless bums as your "guests," and feed them nothing but the very finest food, go ahead — but don't take money out of my paycheck to do it!

Welfare Reform after Ten Years:  A State-by-State Analysis.  On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). ... In the simplest of terms, PRWORA sought to promote work and marriage and discourage births to teenagers and unmarried women.  Most policy experts, liberal and conservative, agree welfare reform produced extraordinary results.  Welfare rolls dropped from 12.2 million in August 1996 to 4.1 million in December 2006, a national decline of 67 percent.  Studies show most former recipients left for work, proving wrong the predictions asserting homelessness would increase dramatically.  Other key measures, such as employment of never-married mothers, grew by 50 percent.  Employment changes of this magnitude over such a short period for an entire demographic group are unprecedented in Census Bureau records.

Food stamp fraud may steal $400M from stimulus funds.  Fraud has declined to between one-third and one-quarter of what it was in the early 1990s, according to the Government Accountability Office.  That's largely a result of the USDA's phasing out stamps and replacing them with ATM-like cards.  Rather than handing over pieces of paper, recipients swipe the card at the grocery checkout and the amount is automatically deducted from their monthly allotments.

Food stamp rule frustrates police in North Dakota.  [John] Schweitzer's misfortune should have been an open-and-shut legal case.  The thief was caught on video surveillance, and he used his own food stamp swipe card to pay for groceries before leaving with Schweitzer's wallet.  But a federal law prohibiting the disclosure of information about food stamp recipients — even to law enforcement, unless a specific name is provided — meant it would take months and a lot of legwork before an arrest was made.

Obama's Stimulus:  LBJ's Great Society welfare was probably the worst of all liberal policies because it was directly responsible for destroying marriage by subsidizing illegitimacy and divorce, thereby creating a matriarchy dependent on government handouts.  It wasn't poverty that destroyed marriage in the lower-income classes, it was the liberal policy of giving taxpayers' money to women, thereby making the husband and father irrelevant and even an impediment to the flow of easy money.  By setting limits on government handouts, the 1996 welfare reform encouraged welfare recipients to get jobs or job training, to make themselves self-sufficient and to end their long-term dependency on government.  The Obama stimulus plan increases the taxpayers' money that the federal government gives to the states for welfare, and reverses incentives by giving bonuses to states that put more people on welfare.

NYC Starts Charging Rent at Homeless Shelters.  Even the homeless can't escape the high price of a night in New York City.  City officials this month began charging rent to some families staying in homeless shelters.  The policy applies only to shelter residents who have income from jobs.

Maryland becomes first state in nation to protect homeless people under hate-crimes law.  Maryland granted a new safeguard to its most downtrodden residents Thursday, becoming the first state in the nation to extend hate-crimes protection to homeless people. ... California, Texas and Ohio are considering similar bills, and legislation has been introduced in Congress.

Gospel of dependence from National Urban League.  Shouldn't it embarrass black Americans that one the nation's largest and most prestigious civil rights organizations offers a long list of proposals to improve black life in our country, and every single proposal is a government program? ... There's not a single proposal that I could find in a several hundred-page report about improving black life that does not start with government.  The civil rights movement once was about freedom and liberation.  Now it's about government dependency.  We should be ashamed.

Houston lines up stimulus package.  Houston is set to embark on a program to provide a boost to some of the city's biggest developments, many of which have been put on hold amid the ongoing financial crisis.  The plan aims to entice developers not to put their multimillion-dollar projects on hold in exchange for millions in incentives if the companies begin building soon and agree to make improvements to public roadways, sidewalks and streetscapes.

One in 10 Americans gets help to buy food.  A record 32.2 million people — one in every 10 Americans — received food stamps at the latest count, the government said on Thursday [4/2/2009], a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.  Food stamps, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, help poor people buy groceries.  The average benefit was $112.82 per person in January.

Welfare Reform R.I.P.  Even many liberals thought the 1996 reform ended the welfare debate forever. ... At issue was the idea of insisting that millions of people make a transition from the dole to the work force.  States were given much more power in running their federally-funded welfare programs, deadlines were imposed on individuals getting back to work, and a lifetime time limit of five years was set for family benefits.  Defenders of the status quo warned that more than a million additional children would be condemned to poverty.  But what really happened was a 65% drop in welfare caseloads, millions liberated from the government teat and returned to supporting themselves, and a model gratefully followed by other countries.

What's In a Number?  That Depends on How You Define 'Homeless'.  A well publicized report this week that an estimated 1.5 million American children experienced homelessness in 2005-06 did not use the federal definition of homelessness.  Instead, it used a different definition that grossly inflated the actual number.

Atlanta 'giving meters' program off to slow start.  Six months after Atlanta business leaders set up parking meter-like machines to accept spare change donations and discourage panhandling, just $500 has been deposited — not much help for beggars who say they can sometimes raise $300 in a day on their own.

The Editor says...
 And that's $300 dollars a day tax free because it's all cash and they don't bother to file tax returns.  How many readers of this page bring home $2000 a week after taxes?

Photo of a "giving meter".

On D.C. Streets, the Cellphone as Lifeline.  To the usual trappings that help many homeless people endure life on the streets — woolen blankets, shopping carts or cardboard box shelters — add the humble cellphone.  Today, it's not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check e-mail or urge friends to read their blogs.

Why Team Obama Hates Poor People.  Democrats, and the progressive left in particular, exploit the poor, they use the poor, they write speeches about them, and manipulate their "unrepresented voices" in debates.  But one thing is increasingly clear from the Obama administration and the popular left in America, they don't have any interest in helping them.

Atlas shrugs, moves to Massachusetts.  Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on a drive to increase unemployment compensation benefits for New Yorkers.  The poor babies only get a maximum of $405 per week, whereas those in Massachusetts get $942.  Those fat cats get benfits which work out to be $48,048 on an annual basis.  The U S Census put median family income for all American families in 2006 at $49,207.

We Are NOT Entitled.  A county government official recently told me that just the "pension obligations owed to firefighters and police" were keeping him up at night.  One thing that so many large employers have in common — from car companies, to the U.S. Postal Service, to local governments — is massive pension obligation that are wreaking havoc on their bottom lines and threatening their viability.  But why should anyone be "entitled" to a pension?  The fact is, the vast majority of Americans have no access to a pension, do not expect one, and will never get one.

Eventually the gravy train runs out of gravy.
 Jobless Angry at Possibility of No Benefits.  As governors in nine states, mostly in the South, consider rejecting millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for increased unemployment insurance, there is growing anger among the ranks of the jobless in those states that they could be left out of a significant government benefit.

Mean Streets.  It is not unusual for me to get hit up for change a half dozen times between the time I leave my downtown [St. Louis] office to grab a bite to eat and return.  The record is ten.  By and large, these panhandlers are not the noble economic victims the mainstream media likes to romanticize on the six o'clock news ... Rather they are largely single men with chronic drug and alcohol habits, and a miscellany of mental illnesses.

Are Our 37 Million Poor Really Poor?  Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation is a national authority on poverty and the U.S. welfare system.  Specializing in welfare reform and family breakdown, Rector has done extensive research on the economic and social costs of welfare.  With presidential candidates of a certain hue decrying the suffering of the 37 million Americans who have been officially classified as poor by the U.S. Census Bureau, we thought we'd ask Rector if these poor people are really as poverty-stricken as we have been led to believe.

I Lost My Country.  There was a time not so long ago when people did not depend on government to bail them out of financial difficulty, a time when the nanny state bred apprehension, not affection.  Now, it seems, in the new America almost everyone wants a free ride.  The non-taxpayer wants a rebate from the taxpayer.  The poor man wants everything the rich man has and he wants the rich man to give it to him.

New Evidence on Taxes and Income.  When all sources of income are included — wages, salaries, realized capital gains, dividends, business income and government benefits — and taxes paid are deducted, households in the lowest income quintile saw a roughly 25% increase in their living standards from 1983 to 2005.  This fact alone refutes the notion that the poor are getting poorer.  They are not.

Welfare's Devastating Effects.  To most people, I imagine, welfare seems an obviously good thing.  But in fact the corrosive and iniquitous side of welfare has been evident for many decades.  It's only now that people are poking their heads out of the trench and daring to say so.  You can see the devastating effects of welfare in Britain, for example, in the exponential rise in single motherhood.  The figures are astonishing.  In the 1950s almost all children in Britain were brought up by their natural parents.  Today, only around half the children in Britain are brought up by their natural parents.  Half!

American Idle.  President Obama is auditioning American Idle contestants.  These non-producers of our society stole the show at his town meeting in Ft. Meyers, Florida on February 10, 2009.  It was like watching a Saturday Night Live skit when a parade of sad sacks asked for handouts.  Henrietta Hughes tearfully begged the President for a car, a kitchen and a bathroom.  Julio Osegueda, overcome in spontaneous euphoria, asked the president what his plans are for giving him better benefits at his job for McDonald's.  A man, who was recently laid off and receiving the forced generosity of the American people through his unemployment check, ungratefully asked why the government did not compensate him for his entire salary.

San Francisco blames out-of-towners for endless homeless problem.  City officials are finally admitting what others have been saying for years:  San Francisco is attracting huge numbers of homeless people from all over.  Thousands of transient people, arriving from other counties, states and even countries, are overwhelming the city's homeless system.  Facing a crippling budget shortfall, officials at San Francisco's homeless agencies are proposing a radical idea — take care of the city's own first, and require newcomers to show proof of residency for aid.

The Editor says...
 The people of San Francisco established a system to accommodate freeloaders, so they can't be surprised when vagrants and bums come from miles around to take advantage of the system.  I have some questions for San Francisco's officials:  (1) If someone is homeless, how can residency be proven or disproven?  (2) How long would I have to live in San Francisco before I became a "resident" and could apply for city services?

Top 10 Poverty Cities:  What do the top 10 cities with the highest poverty rates all have in common?
 1. Detroit, MI... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
 2. Buffalo, NY... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954;
 3. Cincinnati, OH... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1984;
 4. Cleveland, OH... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1989;
 5. Miami, FL... has never had a Republican mayor;
 6. St. Louis, MO... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1949;
 7. El Paso, TX... has never had a Republican mayor;
 8. Milwaukee, WI... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1908;
 9. Philadelphia, PA... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1952;
 10. Newark, NJ... hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1907.

The Editor asks...
 Do poor people reflexively elect Democrats to avoid being cut off from public assistance, or do Democrats actively encourage people to be dependent on big government?  I think both.

The poverty of Democrats' ideas for cities:  Perhaps nothing illustrates that better than what's been happening in Detroit, Michigan, and Buffalo, New York.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly a third of the residents in those cities are living beneath the poverty line, the highest rates among large cities in the entire country. ... Detroit, whose mayor has been indicted on felony charges, hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961.  Buffalo has been even more stubborn.  It started putting a Democrat in office back in 1954, and it hasn't stopped since.

The Magic of Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  Ten out of 10 radicals surveyed agree that America must be remade via spreading the wealth around.  That means confiscating increasingly more money from society's hard-working wage earners and job producers and redistributing or "reinvesting" the booty in liberal programs and bureaucracies.  No matter that the welfare state has been an abject failure, having destroyed the traditional family and shipwrecked tens of millions of lives.  "The welfare system just needs more taxpayer money and then it will finally succeed," dreams the radical left.

The Schmoo is Alive and Well and Living in the White House.  It's difficult to see much difference between the denizens of Dogpatch, the cargo cultists and Obama's disciples, all of whom seem to believe they're entitled to health care, day care, food stamps, college tuition, abortions, a house, a car, a plasma TV and collagen-enhanced lips.  It isn't enough that Obama is a messiah for the non-religious and the number one fantasy sex symbol for America's women and Chris Matthews, he's also Santa Claus.  When I see what Obama and his elves, Pelosi and Reid, are doing to America, spending money like a teenager who's stumbled upon Paris Hilton's Platinum Card, it makes me fear that, thanks to the last election, America has done to itself what no foreign invader could have hoped to accomplish.

"Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work."
— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)    

Octuplets Mom Enrages California Taxpayers.  A big share of the financial burden of raising Nadya Suleman's 14 children could fall on the shoulders of California's taxpayers, compounding the public furor in a state already billions of dollars in the red.  Even before the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother gave birth to octuplets last month, she had been caring for her six other children with the help of $490 a month in food stamps, plus Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters.

NYC Churches Ordered Not To Shelter Homeless.  City officials have ordered 22 New York churches to stop providing beds to homeless people.  With temperatures well below freezing early Saturday, the churches must obey a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week — or not at all.

Illinois' bad joke:  The state is three months behind in paying its suppliers and by spring it could be five months behind.  Keep this up and the state might bankrupt the businesses it needs for products and services.  If you were a doctor or a hospital, how long would you continue to give away your services under these conditions?  About 2.2 million people -- 17 percent of the state's population -- rely on Medicaid.  Most are children, low-income adults and low-income pregnant women.  But the elderly, disabled and blind consume the greatest proportion of aid.

Jindal:  Medicaid program on the skids.  [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal said change is needed because the state's Medicaid program, which serves more than 1 million poor, elderly and disabled Louisianians, is on an unsustainable financial path.  Whereas the program consumed about 8.5 percent of the general fund budget in 2006, it is projected to take up 21 percent by 2011, the governor said.

Good News on the Homeless:  The "homeless" are a population with severe to extreme mental health problems, substance-abuse problems, or other unusual challenges.  They need housing plus some other kind of support — and in recent years, under new Bush administration policies that emphasize treatment as well as housing, those needs have been more and more successfully met.

U.S. homelessness on decline.  Some 1.6 million people were forced to use an emergency shelter or transitional housing at some point between 2006 and 2007, but the number of people who are chronically homeless dropped nearly 30 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to a report made public Tuesday.  "We can all be encouraged that we're making progress in reducing chronic street homelessness in America," said Steve Preston, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, which released the findings.

The Editor says...
 People in an emergency shelter are not necessarily homeless.  Some are sent to shelters as a result of mandatory evacuations.

Homeless Get Cleaned Up With Free Haircuts For DNC.  The City of Denver has been working to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for all the visitors coming to town for the Democratic National Convention, and now a local salon is helping in that effort.  It seems to be a first — don't move the homeless, clean them up.

Priceless politics:  Among the many rationales used to defend the welfare state, the most powerful is that it is necessary, in order to take care of the poor and the downtrodden.  But the amount of money required to bring every poor person in the country above the official poverty line is a fraction of what is spent by government on the welfare state.

The imps of the impoverished.  Ah, the good old days!  When the word "poverty" really meant something!  In the Middle Ages, thousands of city dwellers might starve to death during a drought.  "The poor" were people who walked around without clothing.  To be destitute meant eating tree bark to survive.  Today, obesity is a bigger problem for the poor than is hunger.

Not Everyone Should Own a Home.  Maybe only a friendly foreigner could say this.  But America needs to realize that not everyone can own a home.  The American Dream of home ownership for all is a fraud.  Politicians who pimped this dream created an unsustainable mortgage industry whose collapse is only surprising because it didn't happen earlier.  America's mortgage industry will not recover, nor deserve to recover, unless it is prepared to challenge this politically unpalatable reality.

A Nation of Thieves.  Edgar K. Browning, professor of economics at Texas A&M University, has a new book aptly titled "Stealing from Each Other."  Its subtitle, "How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit," goes to the heart of what the book is about.  The rise of equalitarian ideology has driven Americans to steal from one another.

The Coming Entitlement Crash of 2010.  Culturally, Americans are facing a crisis in confidence.  Citizens feel powerless to impact the steady stream of foreclosures, layoffs and stock market retreats they watch daily.  Suffering from the depression of our age, "learned helplessness," many feel there's nothing they can do themselves to impact their world.  So instead of investing in constructive action, they look for saviors.  Their optimism isn't based on a renewed commitment to self-reliance and hard work but on an activist Democratic makeover of America.

ACORN's Nutty Regime for Cities:  [ACORN] promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor.  As a result, not only does it harm the poor it claims to serve; it is also a serious threat to the urban future.  It is no surprise that ACORN preaches a New LeftÐinspired gospel, since it grew out of one of the New Left's silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization.  In the mid-sixties, founder George Wiley [ ... intended] to flood the welfare system with so many clients that it would burst, creating a crisis that, he believed, would force a radical restructuring of America's unjust capitalist economy.

Acorn Squash.  While Acorn now operates in more than 100 cities with a national budget of $37 million, it never truly left behind the welfare-rights mentality.  One is hard-pressed to find in the organization's many antipoverty initiatives any programs that address social dysfunctions like illegitimacy and single parenthood. ... While [the Community Reinvestment Act] spurred Acorn's growth, the "living wage" is the group's most successful local issue.

In defence of 'Greed'.  Do we all really "need" mobile phones and iPods?  Is it "excessive" for a family to have two cars and a 2,000-square-foot house?  Do we "need" to eat out as often as we do or buy the latest clothing fashions?  What is "needed" is a subjective judgment and makes the definition of "greed" vacuous.

Peggy the Moocher.  Who is Peggy the Moocher?  She's Peggy Joseph, a voter in Sarasota, Fla., who exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was "the most memorable time of my life."  Why?  As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands:  "Because I never thought this day would ever happen.  I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car.  I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage.  You know.  If I help [Obama], he's gonna help me."

Video: Obama Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage!  (Already viewed over a million times.)

Rules eased for food stamps.  As the economy weakens, states and the federal government are trying to help more people qualify for food stamps.  Since Oct. 1, new federal rules make it easier for households with income from combat pay, retirement accounts or education savings to be eligible.  The rules are part of the 2008 Farm Bill, which changed the name of the food stamp program to SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  "This is a nutrition program, not a welfare program," says Jean Daniel, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), noting that half the 29 million Americans who receive aid are children.

The Editor says...
 Of course it's a welfare program.  Just because it's part of the farm bill, and the money is being dispensed by the UDSA, that doesn't mean it's not a welfare program.

Houston Zoo will offer free admission to poor.  Despite record crowds, officials with the Houston Zoo are looking for ways to attract more low-income families.  Starting Aug. 1, families that use the Lone Star card to receive food stamps and other benefits will have unlimited free admission for themselves and up to eight others.

The Editor asks the obvious question...
 How will that help the poor improve their situation?

Activist Blames Poverty on Liberalism.  Blaming poverty on liberalism and the federal government, a conservative activist on Friday [9/14/2007] said:  "It is very sad what the liberals have done with their war on the poor in this country."  "After 40 years of failure, they still insist that they want to expand this war, that they think they should pour more money into this war," said Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education.

Homeless say DNC diversions not for them.  Debbie — and this is merely a hunch — will probably be going to jail next month.  Unless they are giving away free booze and marijuana at the movies, the zoo or the Nature & Science museum — along with the free tickets to those venues they plan on giving the homeless during Democratic National Convention week — I can't see Debbie budging from the dirt beneath the Speer Boulevard bridge she has called home the past 26 years.

Denver's High-Class Homeless:  The area around the convention center where Democrats will gather is home to many of the city's 5,000 or so vagrants, so city officials have hatched a plan to, er, get them out of the way.  For their own good, of course.  But rest assured that Denver isn't going to confine them to shelters or anything.  No, indeed — while the Democrats are crowning Barack Obama, Denver's street people are going to be treated to a cultural renaissance.  Free movie tickets.  Free passes to the Denver Zoo.

East Berlin, D. C.  Increasingly, visiting our nation's capital can only be likened to visiting a distant dystopia, with problems that don't seem quite at home in America.  Criminals are the most obvious malefactors, but surely part of the problem is government.  The seat of our own government is run as if it were the reductio ad absurdum of government everywhere … Whole segments of the population are now snared in the trap of government assistance.  Call it "welfare," if you must … but how much of this money increases the actual welfare of those caught in the cycle of poverty?

The Dumb Leading the Dumber:  George Mason's "Hunger Banquet" is simply a small part of widespread indoctrination, propaganda and miseducation at America's universities that misleads and confuses our young people and promotes class envy.  It happens for at least two reasons:  the 1960s flower children are in administrative positions, and members of boards of trustees, whose duties are to direct and oversee, are derelict in these duties.

Preserving a vision:  Part II.  For decades, the liberal media and the intelligentsia have had to struggle mightily against good economic news.  Their whole vision of the world — and of themselves — is at stake.  It's not easy.  Even Americans in the bottom 20 percent in income have higher real incomes than in the past and such staples of middle class life as microwave ovens and motor vehicles are now common among "the poor."

Slaves to the Welfare State:  Obviously not everyone in New Orleans is a slave to the welfare state.  But on balance its residents have drifted since 1927 into the entitlements mentality:  abandonment of personal responsibility and individual initiative.  The socialist welfare state is a form of slavery, or more accurately, a sort of neo-feudalism in which the individual has no rights independent of the figurative "piece of ground" to which the political state has assigned him.

Promoting Dependence:  Congress has moved closer to passing legislation to bail out homeowners who are in trouble with their mortgages.  Yet again, the taxpayers will be forced to pay for other people's mistakes. … President Bush has said he'll veto a bailout bill if Congress sends him one.  He should.  Many Americans need to unlearn their belief that government is a nanny to catch them when they fall, and learn to define the phrase "moral hazard."

S.F. parking meters retooled to aid homeless.  Rather than tossing loose change into a panhandler's empty cup, San Francisco officials want you instead to slide your spare quarters and nickels into a homeless meter. … A handful of cities around the country, including Denver and Baltimore, have installed homeless meters in recent years.  And while the programs haven't necessarily been lucrative, some cities have seen less panhandling as a result.

The Poverty Hype:  Low-income people have sources of income that don't show up as taxable income such as sales of property like homes, cars, insurance policies redeemed, or the drawing down of bank accounts.  They might be headed by retirees or those temporarily between jobs, and thus their low income total doesn't accurately reflect their long-term status.

Will Hillary's 'Secretary Of Poverty' Solve Problems Of The Poor?  "I believe we should appoint a cabinet level position that will be solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it in America," she solemnly intoned. … The media largely ignored her proposal but her former rival John Edwards applauded it.

The Editor says...
 You remember John Edwards — the champion of the poor, who pays $400 for a haircut.  And didn't Lyndon Johnson say he was going to end "poverty as we know it" about 44 years ago?  Even the liberals don't believe poverty can be eliminated, which may be why the news media brushed off the idea.  Let history be your guide: Did the creation of the Department of Education solve all the public education problems -- or make them worse?  What about the Department of Energy?

Hooverville?  Nah, Just Reuterville!  What seems to have happened here is that [Dana] Ford heard about the tent city and went there with the idea of writing a story about how the housing problem is making people homeless.  When she arrived, she found zero factual evidence to support her thesis, but she was attached to it so she wrote her story anyway, and made the lack of evidence a throwaway line in paragraph 5.  She then rested her story on the prediction of an "activist" that it is "just a matter of time" before Ford's journalism comes true.

A poor way to measure poverty.  The official poverty measure counts only monetary income.  It considers anti-poverty programs such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid and school lunches, among others, "in-kind benefits" — and hence not income.  So, despite everything these programs do to relieve poverty, they aren't counted as income when Washington measures the poverty rate.

End to homelessness.  [Baltimore] Mayor Sheila Dixon unveiled yesterday [1/17/2008] a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, a goal she said the city is moving toward with the recent establishment of a large well-run winter shelter and by setting aside 100 housing vouchers for homeless adults and children.  Dixon described the plan, which was created by a committee of city business and social service leaders, as a "blueprint for a society where homelessness no longer exists."

The Editor says...
 I predict that every bum on the east coast is about to head for Baltimore.

Our taxes now pay for most Arizona births.  More than half of Arizona's babies are born under the state health plan for the poor — a positive trend, in the view of public-health experts, while others see it as a drain on taxpayers.  The trend follows recent policy changes that allow more individuals and families to qualify for free or low-cost care, as well as the ever-increasing costs of private health insurance.

The Editor says...
 How could an increase in poverty be "a positive trend"?

Progressive?  No sooner had the Census Bureau released its annual survey showing the poverty rate for 2005 was unchanged at 12.6% while real median household income rose by 1.1 %, than than the Democrats started complaining about income inequality.

The Problem with Obama's Father's Day Speech:  The problem of fatherless families is the problem of mothers as well as absent fathers.  Children born out of wedlock, after all, are born because a woman decides that a good father is not that important.  The prior irresponsibility is not these young men, but the young woman who decides to have sex with them, intending or assuming that society, rather than a husband, bear the costs of her pregnancy.

Anti-poverty vapors:  Everybody knows President Bush and the Republican Congress have chopped poverty spending to finance massive tax cuts for their wealthy friends. … Once again, what "everybody knows" turns out to be false.  Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Riedl actually looked at social spending under Republican control.  What he finds is as astonishing as it is counterintuitive:  Under the mean, nasty, coldhearted Republicans, expenditures on the poor have zoomed to record levels.  In 2004, 16.3 percent of the federal budget went to anti-poverty efforts.  This figure never has been higher.

One in 15 plays the banjo and chews tobacco.
 One in 6 West Virginians is on food stamps.  About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years.  Amid rising food and fuel costs, the assistance is becoming worth less and less. … Last month, 274,487 state residents received food stamps.

Low-Tax States Cut Poverty Rates:  Study.  Fiscally prudent states appear to be winning the war on poverty, according to a recent study by the Goldwater Institute, which found low-tax and low-spending states are more successful at reducing poverty than their high-tax, high-spending counterparts.  The 10 states with the lowest tax burdens saw a 13.7 percent decline in poverty during the 1990s (more than double the national average), according to the study.  Meanwhile, the 10 states with the highest tax burdens suffered an average poverty rate increase of 3 percent.  The poverty rate dropped nationwide during the decade, the report notes.

Michigan may be first state to issue food stamps twice a month.  Michigan could become the first state in the nation to issue food stamps twice a month, making fresh produce and meat more available and giving grocery workers steadier hours.  The state's 1.2 million food stamp recipients — the highest number ever — now have their benefits added to a debit card within the first 10 days of the month.  They then spend those dollars early in the month, typically in poorer, urban areas where residents may have limited transportation.  Each recipient gets an average $88 a month.

Ohio food stamp recipients have doubled since 2001.  Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receives food stamps, the highest number in the state's history.  Caseloads have almost doubled just since 2001, with 1.1 million residents now collecting benefits, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Homeless activists will always be with us?  On the face of it, hats off to Eric Montanez, age 21, who aims to feed the homeless.  But instincts are not enough.  Montanez was arrested — not for feeding the poor as such, but for feeding the poor in a public park.  Public parks are for the "public," but not for certain members of the public to turn into homes.  Houses are for homes.  Parks are ... Well, parks could be said to be for the "homeless," these days.  That's where many homeless people like to sleep.

She gave him burger; he gave her beating.  The homeless man, David Craig, 41, was outside of the fast-food chain after being told to leave a nearby liquor store.  MacLaren gave Craig the cheeseburger as he was lying down in a parking spot outside the restaurant.  Craig shouted he didn't want the burger, just money….

Orlando's homeless laws spark debate.  At Lake Eola park, there is much beauty to behold: robust palms, beds of cheery begonias, a cascading lake fountain, clusters of friendly egrets and swans, an amphitheater named in honor of Walt Disney.  Then there are the signs.  DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH...

Ottawa's homeless fight for right to sleep in underpass.  A panhandlers' rights group in Ottawa is preparing a human rights complaint against the City of Ottawa after it put up a fence to stop them from sleeping in a downtown pedestrian underpass.

The Editor says...
 What's this?  There's a "panhandlers' rights group in Ottawa"?  Who bankrolls an organization that promotes and defends Canada's parasites?

New York Times lowballs homeless numbers.  Estimates of the number of homeless have a long history of politics trumping accuracy.  When President Reagan was in office, the American media often quoted made-up figures from "advocates" along with the mantra that many of us were "one paycheck away" from living on the streets ourselves.  But yesterday [1/2/2007], the New York Times published a surprisingly low estimate of the number of homeless.  But this time, the estimate was for the number of homeless in France.

Study shows 744,000 homeless people in U.S..  There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade.  A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday [1/10/2007] by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.

30th Anniversary for the Homeless.  Thirty years ago, in the case of Lessard v. Schmidt, ... the Supreme Court ruled that mentally handicapped individuals who were not dangerous could not be held against their will in mental hospitals.  So those hospitals emptied, then closed, sending untold numbers of mentally handicapped folks onto the street.

Liberal or not, Austin ponders a ban on panhandling.  John Henry Smith insists he makes an honest living begging for money at intersections in the state's capital.  In a few hours, with his swollen left leg exposed, he can make $70 or $80.  "It helps to be sick," said the 49-year-old Lubbock native, who was shot in the leg 30 years ago.

Enough is enough,' San Francisco says of the homeless.  San Francisco — the liberal, left-coast city conservatives love to mock — could be undergoing a transformation when it comes to homeless people.  Although the city would still be a poor choice for a pep rally for the war in Iraq, indications are that residents have had it with aggressive panhandlers, street squatters and drug users.

Anti-Poverty Spending Grows.  Republicans claimed Congress is again serious about controlling spending, while Democrats asserted tax cuts and "cuts" in spending would hurt the poor and benefit the rich. … "Anti-poverty spending has grown 42 percent in the last four years and will continue to grow in future years," [Brian] Riedl said.  "We'll go from growth of 39 percent over the next five years to growth of 38 percent in these programs. … If that's slashing spending, we've gotten addicted to massive spending increases."

Los Angeles introduces $100 million effort to combat homelessness.  It was a special day for the "friends and neighbors" of the Los Angeles Mission, a center for transients near Skid Row, because lunch was being provided by the In-N-Out Burger chain.  The shelter's "friends and neighbors" are about 1,200 of the estimated 90,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, the largest concentration of homeless in the nation.

A Whiff of Truth.  These poor people aren't on the street because of mean old conservatives, the economy or stingy taxpayers.  You could hand them a rent-free apartment and a simple job requiring no more than a few hours of their time per week and it wouldn't do any good.  The apartment would be trashed or abandoned within days, if not hours.  The job would be more than their shattered brains could handle.  Sick people are wandering our streets, whether the reasons are mental illness or addiction.

Grand jury sees $500 million in fraud.  Calling Los Angeles County child-care programs an "ATM for thieves," the county grand jury on Thursday [6/29/2006] said welfare recipients and their friends and relatives are defrauding taxpayers of $500 million a year, much more than previously estimated.  Failure of the county Department of Public Social Services to verify that welfare-to-work recipients qualify for child care has resulted in about half of the $1.1 billion CalWORKS child-care program being lost to fraud, jurors wrote in their report.

A dangerous obsession:  Part II.  Who are these minority of the world's population who own a majority of the world's wealth?  They are the population of the United States, Western Europe, Japan and a few other affluent countries.  How did these particular people come to possess so much more wealth than other people?  They did it the old-fashioned way.  They produced the wealth that they own.  You might as well ask why bees have so much more honey than other creatures.

A dangerous obsession:  Part III.  Any number of schemes for redistributing wealth have ended up redistributing poverty in a number of countries.  "Progressives" in the media and among academics and intellectuals claim to be interested in ending poverty but the production of more output is the only way to end poverty for millions of people.

A dangerous obsession:  Part IV.  Transferring wealth from 300 million Americans and spreading it out over more than two billion people in India and China is not going to do much.  But enabling more people in India or China to become more productive can help them and us — and has.  Multinational corporations are among the biggest spreaders of greater productivity to Third World countries and they usually pay higher wages than local employers.  But moral exhibitionists who are hot for the redistribution of other people's money are among the biggest critics of multinational corporations.

Housing costs push California's poverty rate to third highest.  California has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation after the cost of living is taken into account, according to a survey released today [5/11/2006] by the Public Policy Institute of California.  The official measure, which looks at income and the number of people in a family, says the state has the 15th highest poverty rate in the country, with 13.3 percent of its residents below the federal threshold.

The End of America As We Know It:  Despite the fact that we have a national debt that exceeds 9 trillion dollars, an amount that comes out to almost $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States — there are screams of outrage if the rate of growth in any of this country's entitlement programs is cut and there are massive pushes to hand out even more goodies, not to the poor, but to the middle-class.

The storm over poverty:  NAACP President Bruce Gordon praised Bush's speech to the nation this week, but pushed for government to go further, to usher in utopia:  "Now what we need to see is whether he will use the George Bush-style conviction to eliminate poverty."  Eliminate poverty ... with a stroke of the pen?  Is it really that easy?

Myths of rich and poor:  There is a fundamental difference between seeking the truth and scoring points.  In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media.

Divorce:  The Cause of the Shrinking Middle Class.  The average middle class family cannot support two households (and two divorce attorneys) without falling out of the middle class.

Why Poverty Doesn't Rate.  A wealth of evidence shows that those who are counted as poor today have dramatically higher living standards than their counterparts in the 1960s, when the poverty rate was originally devised.

Immigration vs. gate-crashing.  For most of our history, there was a guarantee that immigrants would come here to work.  The alternative was starvation.  With today's welfare state, there's no such guarantee.  People can come here, not work and not starve because the welfare state guarantees that they can live off the rest of us.

The Welfare Debate We're Not Having:  It turns out — apparently to the surprise of many on the left — that working for a living is better than subsisting as a parasite on government handouts.

Is this any way to help the homeless?  Mary Baker and Ruth Neikirk love to cook.  What's more, they love to cook for poor people.  They do it frequently, preparing meals at home and bringing them to their church in Virginia. … The people they cook for love it too.  But there's a problem.  It was "criminal activity."  The Fairfax County health department points out that — horrors — Mary and Ruth are actually preparing food and serving it to people!  Without a license!

The Welfare-Reform Miracle.  Welfare caseloads have dropped 60 percent since the passage of welfare reform.  Was that just the result of a strong economy?  No.  Caseloads didn't decline significantly in any of the eight periods of economic expansion from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.  From 1953 to 1994, the number of families on welfare dropped in only five of those years, and dropped two years in a row only once.  By 2005, welfare caseloads had been declining for a stunning 11 straight years.  Work requirements, and the message sent by reform that dependence is unacceptable, got former recipients into the work force.

Self-reliance matters.  [One] example of admirable legislation that promotes self-reliance is the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.  The bill was initiated by conservative Republicans to replace the failed social program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children.  The new program — Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) — aimed to get poor parents off welfare and into paying jobs, thereby reducing child poverty and combating illegitimacy.  The results speak for themselves.

Clinton got it right on welfare reform.  Not everything has been reformed.  There is clearly more work to do.  The 1996 law affected only the basic welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).  But dozens of other welfare entitlements, such as food stamps and Medicaid, still operate under the old rules.  And while the out-of-wedlock birth rate is no longer skyrocketing, it is still far too high — as are the poverty and social chaos it begets.

Why Welfare Reform Worked:  The 1996 law replaced Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) — traditional welfare — with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).  Congress created AFDC in 1935 as part of the landmark Social Security Act, which also included unemployment insurance and old-age assistance.  In an era when few women worked, AFDC was intended to provide modest income support for widows and their children.  By the 1980s, it had evolved into something else:  guaranteed payments for single, often never-married mothers.  Critics argued that the program bred dependence, weakened self-reliance and rewarded out-of-wedlock births.

How Welfare Reform Worked:  Welfare reform celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and celebrates seems the right word.  As most readers know, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) ended the much-despised Depression-era federal entitlement to cash benefits for needy single mothers, replacing it with short-term, work-oriented programs designed and run by individual states.  Its success has surprised just about everyone, supporters and naysayers alike.

The Entitlement Mess.  Congress is spending us into a hole.  We hear about the cost of earmarks and the Iraq war.  But what about "entitlements"?  That's the government's ironic term for programs that transfer money from people who earned it to people who didn't.  Entitlement?  How can you be entitled to someone else's money?  To finance "entitlement" programs, the government threatens force against the taxpayers who provide the money.

Apocalypse Not:  Welfare reforms's success is a lesson in modesty.  Welfare reform turned 10 this week, and more remarkable than its near-total success is the near-total amnesia that seems to have gripped its one-time opponents. … When Bill Clinton signed the bill ending a federal entitlement to welfare, a leading liberal newspaper called it "nasty," "atrocious" and "odious" — adding with typical nuance that "the children will suffer the most."

Welfare reform at ten.  Welfare reform was associated with a sustained pause in the growth of illegitimacy, which does hurt children.  But it has not reversed the long-term trend toward more children born outside of marriage.

Curing poverty or using poverty?  People on the political left make a lot of noise about poverty and advocate all sorts of programs and policies to reduce it but they show incredibly little interest in how poverty has actually been reduced, whether in China or anywhere else.

Poverty IQ:  Po' vs. broke.  I'm delighted to hear people jawboning about poverty again, even if it took a couple of hurricanes to get us to do it.  But sometimes I wonder how many people know what poverty is.

Book Explains Why the Good Old Days Are Now.  Most Americans who are considered poor today have access to a quality of housing, food, heath care, consumer products, entertainment, communications, and transportation that even the superrich Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Rockefellers did not enjoy in their day.

The Nanny State of the Union:  The fact that such burgeoning government interventionism in state, community and private affairs is beyond the constitutional pale goes without saying. For the Founders, dependence on government in private and public life was to be avoided at all costs — such dependence, as they rightly saw it, being the root of bondage.

America has Become a Dependent Culture.  When the power goes off for more than a day, the inhabitants of whole cities can become refugees from the elements and have to be saved by big-brother government.  If the help doesn't come fast enough the "refugees" cry foul and complain.  As in the travesty that was New Orleans (Hurricane Katrina), the people stood around helpless, waiting for government to deliver them from a nature-made calamity.  They were incapable of helping themselves.  Several thousand died as a result and billions of tax dollars were squandered to save the rest.  They didn't have the intelligence, training or the where-with-all to escape the big city.  The big city and their helplessness killed them, or made them wards of the government.

How Washington will spend your taxes in 2006.  Nearly half of the spending on low-income programs subsidizes state Medicaid programs that provide health services to poor families.  Other low-income spending includes:  Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, housing subsidies, child-care subsidies, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and low-income tax credits.  Despite recent rhetoric about "cuts for poor," anti-poverty spending now tops 3 percent of GDP for the first time ever.

 Editor's Note:   People with low income pay little or nothing in taxes and do not need or deserve tax credits, especially if they receive other goods and services from the government.

Man pleads guilty to food stamp fraud.  A man charged in Florida with having ties to a terrorist organization pleaded guilty Friday [6/16/2006] to processing more than $1.4 million in phony food stamp transactions at a grocery store he once owned.  Hatem Fariz, 33, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering.  In exchange for his plea, federal prosecutors dropped eight other counts.

The Katrina experiment:  The common denominator of low-income-housing programs over these last 40 years is that they have been consistent failures.  Yet, despite this indisputable fact, today's social-policy gurus persist in search of the magic government low-income-housing program, rather than appreciating that the problem has been, and is today, government interference in private lives.

A Very Late Checkout.  After being flown [to New York City] for free back in September, [Theon] Johnson's been at the Holiday Inn since Super Bowl Sunday.  On April 21, the hotel served Johnson with three notices of occupancy termination, saying that it would begin court proceedings if he wasn't out by May 9.  He wasn't, so it did.  If the court boots him, Johnson could end up in one of the city's homeless shelters.  He's been broke for over a month now.  FEMA sent him $9,000 in housing aid, but he spent it all on booze, cigarettes, some clothes, and food — partying, mostly.  "I spent my money just the way I wanted, and I think [FEMA] should send me some more," he says.

The Editor cries out in frustration ...
 Here's an example of a person who will be a freeloader and a sponge for the rest of his life.  If there's a government "No Fly" list at the airport, why isn't there a "No Handouts" list at the homeless shelters?  It would be cheaper to buy this man a one-way ticket to another country.  Or at least to Guam or Puerto Rico or somewhere other than a New York City hotel!

NBC 15 confronts Speaker Nancy Pelosi on FEMA spending.  When NBC 15 News first met Gwenester Malone a month ago, she was receiving three catered meals a day, while housekeepers made sure her hotel room stayed clean.  None of it was costing her a dime.  "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job," Malone said, "but when push comes to shove, I will."  That shove may not come until March 2009.

More about Hurricane Katrina and the rise of the welfare state.

Libertarianism and Poverty:  This essay outlines a libertarian approach to poverty.  No, it's not "Leave them in the gutter."  It's an approach that tries to be pragmatic and compassionate.

The 2005 Index of Dependency:  Benjamin Franklin wrote that "the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it," and observed that the growing welfare system in England removed "the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving [the poor] a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation [of wealth] during youth and health.

Forging a healthy BOND:  "Each year government spends over $200 billion on means-tested aid to families with children; three-quarters of this aid flows to single-parent families," [Robert] Rector testified before Congress last February.  "Children raised without a father in the home are more likely to experience:  emotional and behavioral problems, school failure, drug and alcohol abuse, crime and incarceration."

Bunks for drunks.  An experimental social-service project rewards chronic alcoholics with room and board, no strings — or help — attached.

Apartments Welcome Homeless Alcoholics.  When Brian Steik lived on the streets, the government spent tens of thousands of dollars on emergency room visits and other services to keep the alcoholic alive.  Now social-service agencies are conducting an experiment:  Offering Steik and dozens of other homeless drinkers subsidized apartments where they can keep boozing at a fraction of the cost.

Since we're talking about race and class…  Since the days of the Great Society, the U.S. Government has thrown literally trillions of dollars at the poor.  It undoubtedly helped some and it indisputably hurt others.  The people it hurt most are poor blacks, helping to erode social and family bonds.  We are told, for example, that out-of-wedlock births are a uniform cultural phenomenon these days.  This is simply a lie.  Seventy percent of blacks are born out of wedlock, most of them poor. … Upper-income women overwhelmingly wait to get married before they have their kids.

Free Lunch:  Title I's formula for determining aid — and its recipe for fraud:  The process to qualify for a free lunch comes down to parents self-reporting their income on a form that is turned in to their local school.  Federal free-lunch program administrators argue that the program has little potential for abuse because "the worst that happens is a kid gets a free lunch."  Federal free-lunch data, however, are used as one of the main poverty indicators for school districts and are linked to many other local, state, and federal funding streams.  So any fraud in the free-lunch program is quickly multiplied.

Cronyism 101:  The Perks of Being "Disadvantaged".  The "Disadvantaged Business Enterprise" program, run by the U.S. Department of Transportation and adopted by states and cities across the country, is one of the most atrociously corrupt government endeavors in existence.  Opportunists of all colors have used the racial set-aside law to win billions of dollars worth of federal contracts for themselves and their friends under the guise of being "victims."

Work pays!  Those for whom indignation is a way of life often inform us of the fact that families or households in the top 10 or 20 percent in income make far more money than people in the bottom 10 or 20 percent in income.  What they almost never inform us of are how much money they are talking about and how many people in these different brackets actually work.

Liberals and class:  If this is a class-ridden society denying "access" to upward mobility to those at the bottom, why is it that immigrants can come here at the bottom and then rise to the top?  One obvious reason is that many poor immigrants come here with very different ambitions and values from that of poor Americans born into our welfare state and imbued with notions growing out of attitudes of dependency and resentments of other people's success.

Only in America.  What are we to make of people who preach pessimism and doom to people — telling them that they're poor because others are rich or telling blacks that they'll never make it because of societal racism?  What are we to make of politicians, media pundits and college professors who preach the politics of envy — telling people lies that the rich became rich off the backs of the poor?

Pushing a formula for getting poor.  No one can devise a formula for getting rich.  But I can devise a formula for getting poor.  Don't work.  Convince yourself that your life reflects the decisions of others and not yours.  Be the perennial victim.  This is the toll that the welfare state has taken on blacks.  It introduced a culture of poverty.

More class warfare.  A key element of the John Kerry-John Edwards campaign is an us-versus-them theme, where "us" are the poor and middle class and "them" are the greedy rich.  Edwards famously characterized this dichotomy as "Two Americas" during his run for the Democratic nomination.  The clear implication of the Democrats' message is that the rest of us would somehow be better off if the rich were worse off.

We really are better off.  The media's reporting about poverty is misleading too.  It's true that the official poverty rate has risen lately.  Some people do line up at food banks.  But what Americans call poverty is totally different from what it's meant through most of history.  A "poor" man at a food bank told me he had "the normal things":  cable TV, a microwave — the "normal things" that not even rich people used to have.

Silence on Welfare Reform:  What may be most striking about the current welfare debate may be the remarkable absence of journalistic interest in the topic.  In fact, the news media's silence speaks volumes, testifying to the emergence of a broad new consensus surrounding a law that was vilified by opponents when it was originally passed.

Illegitimacy is the Major Cause of Child Poverty.

Welfare reform fantasyland:  Finally, the federal government has stopped subsidizing families to keep fathers out of the household.  It only took a half-century and millions of broken families but the government finally got it.  But there are 70 other federal welfare programs.

Is It Wrong to Require Work in Exchange for a Welfare Check?:  "It's too bad that Congressman Rangel sees getting something for nothing as being more noble than having to put in an honest day's work for it," said Project 21 member Michael King.  "As opposed to sitting on their hands and doing nothing, residents are asked to give a portion of one day in exchange for receiving housing.  What's the problem?  Oh, I forget — this gives Congressman Rangel and his compatriots something else to point to at election time."

Make Welfare Mothers Work:  In the spring of 1994, the last full year of welfare as we knew it, 112,000 Massachusetts families were on the dole.  In the spring of 2001, the caseload stands at 41,500 — a reduction of 63 percent.  So spectacular has the success of welfare reform been that it is easy to forget how bitterly — and with what moral posturing — it was opposed.

Daring to Question The Welfare State:  Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in an interview with Financial Times, said, "Able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis so that they can provide for their own retirement and, for that matter, health and medical needs." Shocking!

Poor Before Welfare.  Before the rise of the welfare state, Americans of all classes shared a deep aversion to dependence on either private organized charity or governmental relief.  Indeed, there was a great stigma in the folk culture attached to any form of what might be called hierarchical relief (relief in which those who control the purse strings are higher on the socio-economic scale than the recipients).

What is poor?  Many poor people today own appliances that were considered luxuries when I grew up, and some would still be considered luxuries today.  For example, 91% of those in the lowest 10% of households — all of whom are officially poor — own color TVs; 74% own microwave ovens; 55% own VCRs; 47% own clothes dryers; 42% own stereos; 23% own dishwashers; 21% own computers; and 19% own garbage disposals.

 Editor's Note:   The "poor" seem to always have money for cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets.  Even the poorest of the poor sometimes buy wine.

 Excellent:   Understanding Poverty in America:  For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution:  an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter.  But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description.  While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.  Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.

The productive vs. the unproductive:  Today, more than 98 percent of American homes have a telephone, electricity and a flush toilet.  More than 70 percent of Americans own a car, a VCR, a microwave, air conditioning, cable TV, and a washer and dryer.  In 1900, no homes had the modern conveniences of today.  Today's poor Americans have choices that yesterday's millionaires could have only dreamt of, such as cell phones, computers and color television sets.

Liberal Activists Demand "Meaningful" Welfare Reform:  A "who's who" of liberal activists descended on Washington, D.C., March 25, [2002] to publicize their anti-poverty plan.  They want poverty reduction to be the main focus of welfare reauthorization, and they plan to say it loudly — with protests.

Jacko and Snoop Dogg's America.  Michael Jackson's father is blaming — what else? — American "racism" for his ghoulish son's persistent legal and personal problems.

 Editor's Note:   The article above is replete with charts and footnotes, as well as a number of surprising statistics.  For example, ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.  Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.  Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Government, Poverty and Self-Reliance:  One of the saddest chapters in American history is one from our own times, and it's the well-documented tragedy of what decades of federal programs have done to black families in our inner cities.  Charles Murray's pivotal book, "Losing Ground," told that story in a compelling way and sparked huge changes in federal welfare policy.  So much destruction of lives might have been avoided if the presidents and congresses of the 1960s and 1970s had been of the same mind as President Andrew Johnson was when he vetoed a bill to extend the Freedman's Bureau in 1866.  In his veto message, he noted, "A system for the support of indigent persons in the United States was never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution; nor can any good reason be advanced why, as a permanent establishment, it should be founded for one class or color of our people more than another."

The Black Family:  40 Years of Lies.  Almost 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers.  Those mothers are far more likely than married mothers to be poor, even after a post-welfare-reform decline in child poverty.  They are also more likely to pass that poverty on to their children.

Self-inflicted poverty:  Did you learn that the United States is rich because we have bountiful natural resources?  That has to be nonsense.  Africa and South America are probably the richest continents in natural resources but are home to the world's most miserably poor people.  On the other hand, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and England are poor in natural resources, but their people are among the world's richest.

Poverty That Defies Aid.  Between 1960 and 2005, foreign aid worth more than $450 billion, inflation adjusted, poured into Africa.  Result?  Between 1975 and 2000, African gross domestic product per capita declined at an average annual 0.59 percent rate. … Foreign aid to Africa has also enabled government officials to embezzle large amounts of money and misspend much on loss-making projects.

This is real poverty...
 Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt.  About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

The Cos again.  Yesterday's gross material poverty among blacks is all but gone.  In all too many cases, it has been replaced by the worse kind of poverty — poverty of the spirit.

Vanderbilt professor who was born into poverty calls for end to affirmative action:  Carol Swain grew up in a poor black family of 12 children, a family that had to carry water up a steep hill to their rural Virginia shack to run the washing machine or take baths.  Years later, she is an award-winning political scientist — and an author whose name and opinions probably will become more familiar in the next few months.

Sweden to rein in generous welfare.  Sweden was poised to enact controversial cutbacks to its generous unemployment benefits system as early as last night [12/21/2006], bringing thousands of people on to the streets in defence of the country's long tradition of a welfare safety net.

Poverty Does Not Cause Crime.  In all my years covering court, I don't ever recall a defence lawyer claiming that his or her client committed a particular crime because of poverty.  All sorts of explanations crop up during sentencing submissions, including addiction, mental illness, childhood abuse and abysmal coping skills.  Defence lawyers, however, do not pin their hopes for a light sentence on the poverty-causes-crime argument.  It's untrue and judges won't buy it.



Overgrown toddlers depend on 9-1-1 for everything

The Editor says...
 The nanny state has established 9-1-1 as a universal means of asking for help from the almighty government.  Naturally there are people who turn to this service as a matter of reflex whenever the slightest dispute arises.  Something tells me that these same people are already in the habit of depending on the government for financial support.

I'm sure there are many cases like this, but here are just a few examples:

Homeless woman dials 911 for ride to Rockford.  Kathleen J. Featherstone, 57, allegedly called 911 from a pay phone outside the Road Ranger at 3752 Camp Butler Road, and said, "Get somebody here now."  When the officer arrived, Featherstone said she was trying to get to Rockford and wanted police to take her.

Man calls 911 after Subway left sauce off sandwich.  Jacksonville police say Reginald Peterson needs to learn that 911 is not the appropriate place to complain that Subway left the sauce off a spicy Italian sandwich.

Fort Pierce woman calls 911 when McNuggets run out.  Told McDonald's was out of Chicken McNuggets after paying for a 10-piece, a local woman called 911.  Three times.  "This is an emergency, If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one," Latreasa L. Goodman later told police.  "This is an emergency."

At least something good resulted from all this...
 'I'm embarrassed' by McNugget meltdown.  After becoming an Internet sensation for calling 911 three times to report an emergency after McDonald's had run out of McNuggets, a Fort Pierce woman said Wednesday she is embarrassed by all the media attention.  "I'm embarrassed to show my face in public," Latreasa Goodman told WPBF News 25's Alexis Rivera one day after her McNugget meltdown was first reported.

Woman calls 911 over lack of shrimp in fried rice.  A woman called 911 to report she didn't get as much shrimp as she wanted in her fried rice at a Texas restaurant.  Haltom City police on Tuesday [4/7/2009] released the taped emergency call, in which the customer is heard telling the dispatcher, "to get a police officer up here, what has to happen?"

Largo 911 call: 'Taco Bell won't serve me tacos!'.  A Largo man's late night craving and demand for tacos landed him in the Pinellas County jail for misuse of a 911 system.  Terry Kimbell, 50, called 911 from his cell phone to inform the dispatcher Taco Bell would not sell him tacos while he stood in the drive-thru lane Tuesday night [9/13/2011], according to a Largo police report.

Deputies:  Bad Manicure No Reason For 911.  Authorities said 44-year-old Cynthia Colson, of Deltona, called 911 several times after she wasn't satisfied with the length of her nails after a manicure.  Deputies said Colson called 911 at least four times:  twice after her original 911 call asking when deputies would arrive and a fourth time when the deputy was at the store trying to settle the dispute over payment.

Woman calls Haltom City cops over her 'extra shrimp'.  Here's a fishy food fight.  A woman who ordered shrimp fried rice at A&D Buffalo's on Monday afternoon called police when she believed that she didn't get the extra shrimp she had requested.

The state and federal governments bring this extra burden upon themselves by encouraging this over-reliance on the 9-1-1 system.

See a Smoker in a Non-Smoking Area?  Call 911.  If you catch someone smoking in a non-smoking area in Omaha, Neb., call the police.  The Omaha Police Department is encouraging city residents to call 911 in the wake of the citywide ban on smoking that went into effect on Oct. 2.

Is that what the designers of the 9-1-1 system had in mind?

Here's one good reason not to have a cell phone:

Wireless Technology:  They'll Know Where You Are:  Under the so-called Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA) police are given the authority to track the locations of any cell phone users even if they're not dialing 911.

Many more articles about cell phone tracking can be found here.

Even if you dial 911 when you legitimately need help, there are no guarantees.
 Woman Waits 35 Minutes On 911 While Intruder Breaks In.  A Williamson County woman fought off an intruder with a vacuum cleaner.  She was desperate for help, waiting for almost 35 minutes for law enforcement to arrive.  The single mom described that 35 minutes like the scene of a horror movie as she watched a man walk from windows to doors doing anything to break in to her home.


The War on Poverty

Clinton Vows To End Poverty.  [Ending poverty as we know it in America] seems to me to be a rather ambitious undertaking, especially when you consider America has spent upwards of four trillion dollars of taxpayer money in the "war on poverty" since it was declared by Lyndon Johnson in 1964.  The current poverty rate, by government standards is only slightly lower than it was in 1963, and that is only because the rate is an arbitrary figure set by government.

Why Not Abolish the Welfare State?  Since 1965 we have spent $5 trillion on the War on Poverty, measured in 1992 constant dollars.  Yet the poverty rate is higher today than it was the year the War on Poverty began.  How can we spend so much and achieve so little?  One reason is that most of the money we spend doesn't go to poor people.  It goes to nonpoor people who work in the welfare-poverty industry.  Medicaid dollars go to doctors and hospitals; food stamp dollars go to the agricultural industry; housing subsidies go to landlords; and legal service dollars go to lawyers.

Liberal emotion vs. Conservative logic:  It takes a lot more integrity, character, and courage to be a conservative than it does to be a liberal.  That's because at its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues. … Look at Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty," which did nothing to reduce the poverty rate despite the trillions that were spent; however, it did help drive the illegitimacy rate among black Americans from 22 percent in 1960 to 70% in 2005.

Ammunition for poverty pimps:  Since President Johnson's War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs.  To put that figure in perspective, last year's U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S.  Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty — dependency and self-destructive behavior.

Welfare State Continues to Grow:  When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty more than 30 years ago, he announced it was an investment that would repay its cost to society many times over.  Since that time, the United States has "invested" $7.95 trillion (in constant 1999 dollars) in programs that provide cash, food, housing, and medical and social services to poor and low-income Americans.  By contrast, the cost to the United States of fighting World War II was $3.2 trillion (also in 1999 dollars).  The cost of the War on Poverty has been more than twice the price tag for defeating Germany and Japan in World War II, after adjusting for inflation.

$9 Trillion Didn't End Poverty — What to Do?  Nine Trillion dollars has been spent fighting the "war on poverty".  Yet, as the Census Bureau just reported, poverty in America is up.  So what do the candidates propose we do?  Isn't it time that one of the candidates admit we cannot spend our way out of poverty?

The "War on Poverty" Turns 40.  In his State of the Union address forty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America."  Since then, the federal government has created vast new bureaucracies and raised taxes to a staggering level not seen since World War Two.  LBJ helped create welfare (AFDC), Medicare, Head Start, the Job Corps, and Medicaid.  Worst of all, most of LBJ's War on Poverty was a failure.


How many trillions of dollars have been spent on Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty?"

Estimates below are from what appear to be reliable sources, as opposed to anonymous bloggers, letters to the editor, and other wild guesses by unknown authors.  These numbers, except for the last one, were compiled in April, 2008.

5 trillion:  Robert Sirico, 1995.
5 trillion:  John C. Goodman, Gerald W. Reed, Peter S. Ferrara, 1994.
5.1 trillion:  Robert Rector, 1993.
5.3 trillion:  Institute for Public Accuracy, 1999.
5.4 trillion:  William F. Lauber, 1995.
5.4 trillion:  John C. Goodman, 1996.
5.4 trillion:  Michael Tanner, 1996.
5.4 trillion:  Alice Klimkoski, 2007.
5.429739 trillion:  Jan Brauner, 2005.
6.6 trillion:  George F. Will, 2005.
6.6 trillion:  Rush Limbaugh.
6.98 trillion:  Leon Felkins, 2001.
7 trillion:  Anthony Salas.
7 trillion:  Adam Young, 2002.
8.9 trillion:  Jenifer Zeigler, 2004.
9 trillion:  Michael Hampton, 2006.
9 trillion:  Walter Williams, 2005.
9.1 trillion:  Harry Browne.
8 to 10 trillion:  Jerome R. Corsi and Kenneth Blackwell, 2006.
10 trillion:  Steven Malanga, 2004.
10 trillion:  Jerry De Angelis, 2006.
11 trillion:  Robert Rector, 2007.
Over 11 trillion:  Bill Steigerwald, 2007.
More than 13 trillion:  Investor's Business Daily, 2010.
15.9 trillion:  The Heritage Foundation, 2009.
16 trillion:  Investors Business Daily, 2011.
16 trillion:  American Thinker, 2011.
16 trillion:  Republican Study Committee, 2011.


"For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."

— II Thessalonians 3:10        



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