Sent: Wed, Aug 26, 2015 7:11 PM EDT
Subject: Fwd: Welfare competition?
In Washington, DC, Welfare Is Already on Par With Europe
By Jordan Candler · Aug. 25, 2015
Normally when it comes to welfare in America the $1 trillion question is
when exactly we will devolve into European-level dependency. When it comes
to our nation’s capital, however, it seems we’re already there — and then
some. In fact, if you live in DC, Denmark is the only country that offers
greater benefits on the taxpayer dole, according to a new Cato Institute
study. Michael D. Tanner and Charles Hughes write, “In D.C., a mother with
two children under the age of five who participates in six major welfare
programs — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps), housing assistance,
home energy assistance, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIC), and free commodities — would receive a
benefits package worth $34,963 per year. Using a similar measure, Cato
found that benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to
just $1,112 in Romania. In fact, the District’s welfare system can be more
generous than every country included except Denmark. The benefits package
is higher than in well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany
($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111).” Keep in mind the study excludes
Medicaid expenses that would add another $8,140. Tanner and Hughes are also
careful to note, “People in these programs are not lazy, but they are also
not stupid. Like everyone else, they respond to incentives. If welfare pays
better than work, people on welfare will be less likely to work.” Perhaps a
good place to begin reform is on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers' paychecks
should be rescinded until they actually get any work done. :-)
Fwd: Welfare competition?
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15 comments:
Using dogwhistle to promote the idea that austerity is ok.
Just remember who pays the Cato Institute's overhead.
Amazing how DC has so much power when the residents of the city aren't even allowed to elect their own Members of Congress. Those young single mothers sure are sneaky and powerful. Public Housing! Assistance with buying their babies milk! Talk about living on easy street!
Some light debunking to go with your morning coffee:
http://www.epi.org/blog/cato-study-distorts-truth-welfare-work/
http://www.cbpp.org/commentary-cato-gets-it-very-wrong-the-safety-net-supports-rather-than-discourages-work?fa=view&id=4004
TL;DR version: This "study" only works if you assume someone could get every possible assistance program at the same time. Realistically that's a long shot. They also ignore the fact that the vast majority of folks on public assistance also work, and use assistance to supplement their meager incomes.
Here's the only clue we need to demonstrate that this is mostly bullshit:
The amount of the benefits cited is less than the per capita income in this country. If you could make that much by not working, millions of people would be rushing to sign up.
They're not, and that tells us all we need to know.
Thanks for debunking. My first thought, too, was that it's highly unlikely that most people on any kind of assistance are getting something from ever single one of the very few meager programs out there. Usually people are getting help from one or two programs.
It's a known and documented fact that employees of outrageously wealthy squillionaires, like the Walton spawn & Jeff "CIA" Bezos, are taught how to apply for various government benefits because their full time pay is inadequate to live on.
You want to get mad at someone?? How about focusing your self-righteous indignation on mega-wealthy business owners, most of whom pay little in taxes, all of whom are ridiculously wealthy, and some of whom pay their employees so inadequately that YOU and I have to help "pay" these full-time workers just so they have food on their tables. This probably also applies to the many undocumented workers that Donald Trump routinely employs in building and running his casinos... until said casinos routinely go into bankruptcy.
Typical rightwing distraction bullshit, but eh? Cato Institute. What else is new?
Welfare pays more than work. That speaks volumes. I heard a thing on Socialist NPR the other day about a minimum income system in the Netherlands, Everybody is given a base income to cover things like mortgage food medical and so on and you get to keep that regardless of the job you take. I would love to participate in something like this work a job I love as opposed to breaking my back to earn my pay, and dont forget to grovel.
@ LiberlGunner
Welfare pays more than work.
No, it doesn't. And if it did, that would speak volumes about the failures of Capitalism.
That was my point maybe it didn't come off right.
Here, I'll answer this one like a LIBERAL WEENIE:
I'm calling bullshit on this one...
We're $18 trillion in debt because Republicans have repeatedly cut taxes
to the point where revenue is now well below the amount needed to sustain
the level of government that the public demands.
We've seen nonsense like this many times before. Rightwing dads out there have been
carefully taught to hate "poor people," plus carefully taught that it's only the "poor" who
are ruining everything. RWD has also been carefully taught to be a perpetual whining
victim who never comes up with one solution.
The 1%, per usual, laugh their asses off all the way to their off-shore accounts bc RWD
is such an easily misled rube.
Funny thing about these faux populistic screeds: They always manage to bark up the wrong
tree as to the cause of their woes and revert back to what comes natural for
reactionaries: Kiss up and kick down.
Let's try Unending War as one of the reasons for debt, which RWDs love to do nothing more than clap and cheer for.
Funny how the same people whom want to outlaw abortion don't want to help out single
moms, or better yet just demonize single moms as free loaders.
More of "You better have that kid and I better not have to pay for it". Which is it RWD? You cant have your cake and eat it too.
P.S. - For all of this rant's verbosity, they left out the part about Welfare queens driving
Cadillacs to buy lobster tails with food stamps.
It seems that each side sees things from their viewpoint.
If the GOP helped raise taxes to support what the "public demands", it would be like how the Eskimos used to kill wolves. Place a knife in the ice, blade up, coat with some blood and when the wolves lick the taste of the blade....they drink their own blood.
Raising taxes on the rich and large corporations just drives them "offshore" and takes jobs with them. Raising wages without maintaining price controls on the cost of living, doesn't solve anything. In the short time you just have to raise wages again to keep up with the cost of living.
Mike Hawk
Knock knock yoo hoo... here's a very deep dark hidden secret that's really shocking to learn: the corporations have already off-shored a huge amount of US jobs, and those that they can't off-shore, they're filling with H1(b) visa people. Plus certain corporations routinely recruit, hire and bring undocumented workers to the USA.
The CEOs and other captains of industry are currently multi-millionaires, if not billionaires and squillionaires. Pretending that these people "need" more money is ridiculous. As long as they've bought off the government, their bought off lackeys in the Congress and rightwing think tanks will peddle sheer utter hogwash that wages have to stay artificially low because otherwise our fabulous "job creators" will leave us serfs to rot. Here's a news flash: that's already happened.
Live in a dreamworld all you like, but saying that there's nothing that can be done solve these problems is spoken like a true lackey of the 1%. Color me utterly unsurprised.
They're already offshore, troll.
They need to be brought to heel. A CEO's job isn't to create jobs or pay taxes. It's to take advantage of every loophole and screw as many people as possible while he and his board get rich.
Any idiot can see that. Job creators, my ass. If the private sector won't cooperate, fuck 'em. That's what the public sector is for. There's a lot of work to be done, but the private sector blocks it because it's in their best interests at the expense of the country.
As usual Mike has to cut and paste to have anything to say besides 7th grade level insults. Dude...if you're going to plagiarize someone at least clean up all the extra space so it's not so obvious.
Max
I really have no idea what Mike wants. Maybe he's trying to have it both ways but is too immature to carry it off.
Pick a side, dumbass. No one accepts what you say because of your insincerity. Liberals don't need you to speak for them. They wouldn't be liberals in the first place if they didn't know what was what.
@Mike Hawk
Raising taxes on the rich and large corporations just drives them "offshore" and takes jobs with them.
That's not what happened in the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s or the 1970s, when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and our nation enjoyed unprecedented growth.
Why would it happen now?
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