A Nation of Takers: Behind the Entitlement Explosion

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Artic...s-Behind-the-Entitlement-Explosion.aspx#page1

What's more, here's a graph of all entitlement spending, minus Medicare/Medicaid, as share of GDP.


...Huh. Notice how there's very little pattern, beyond spikes during recessions and weak economic situations (from which we are steadily going down)?


Another excerpt:

The whole article is really quite fascinating, honestly.

 

Strange that someone talking welfare brings up unemployment and medicare since neither is welfare.

 

It's mainly because in the GOP's argument, it makes very little difference.

 

I have to wonder how many people on this site are part of the "takers".

How many of you are on some form of entitlement program? Welfare, food stamps? Come on, fess up.


Benjamin Franklin had it right. The boat can only float so long when a smaller and smaller majority of people are bailing the water compared to the people climbing in.

The quote in my signature says it all. We are on the highway to a greek economy.

 

They use the term welfare using a very broad brush and it is not accurate.

 

Depends on what you call an entitlement program. I doubt there are many actually taking actual welfare benefits.

 

if your in line for gov entitlements, it;s better to be in the rich line, they get better entitlements

 

Entitlements growth will bring the U.S.A. to default or print more and more and more money. We are not "growing" ourselves out of this one as NeoCons and Liberals cannot quit their addiction to spending money. Our children will suffer immensely as these current generations are plundering their future.

We need to freeze the budget baseline. Decrease spending on the true baseline by 1 cent per dollar per year. In less than 1 decade we will have a balanced budget. This is the only responsible thing to do.

Instead we have Democrats that refuse under any circumstances to quit their increase in spending. It's is doom for the country.

 

Take for instance school breakfast, lunch, and even dinner programs.
There was a time that we expected parents to do their job and feed their own kids.
Now we expect someone else to take tgat responsibility over.

 

Do you know why Greece collapsed? Because if you did, you would understand that the circumstances it brought itself into are virtually impossible for a country which is in control of its own currency and doesn't hold great amounts of debt in foreign currencies. And what part of "On the other hand, there’s not much evidence in federal budget documents examined by The Fiscal Times to suggest the “welfare state” has grown more generous over the years. Total spending on public assistance and unemployment insurance will total 1.7 percent of GDP in 2012, no different than what it was in 1976, which was also a year when the economy was weak. In the mid-1960s, a time of rapid economic expansion, spending on welfare and the unemployed was 0.6 percent. Spending on food and nutrition assistance programs has also leaped since their creation in the mid-1960s, but it is still less than one percent of GDP." is so hard to understand?

Um... Except for the fact that our entitlements apparently aren't growing. Our health care costs are.

Hey, I've got a great idea! You know how we're in a long, deep recession, primarily due to lack of aggregate demand caused by low funds in the private sector? Let's take even more money out of the private sector, and slash demand even further!

There was a time when America still had an industry sector. This was also addressed in the article of the OP, which apparently nobody actually bothered to read. What a surprise.

 

Liberals need to start giving me their money.

All of it. I'm entitled to it because I spray painted myself brown.

 

republicans are over playing this one, America is not that stupid

on one hand republicans say a trillion in savings is not that much when the tax cuts the the rich are concerned and then they moan and grown at every little thing the poor or middle class or even our seniors get

the poor need what help they get, the middle class benefits from it, the seniors deserve it and the rich don't need it, so which do they fight to keep, you guessed it, the entitlements for the rich

keep fighting like this republicans, your only shooting yourselves in the foot

.

 

Just a question, why should the child have to go hungry if they have parents that will not take responsibility to feed them? How would you force a parent to meet their responsibilities, or anyone for that matter?

 

Because in the republican bubble if you cut all forms of help people will magically become stand up citizens and start working at all those high paying jobs.

 

That's because the wealthy won't pay the workers a decent wage.

 

What did Jesus say?

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_teachings_of_jesus/on_giving/mt05_41.html

 

I don't give a f*** what some magic man in the sky said.

You owe me your money hoe. Now give it to me.

 

All the taxes money taken from the rich will only last for 8 days at our CURRENT spending rate and Barack Obama and the Liberals want to INCREASE this spending rate. We are screwed.... and we have a bunch of ignorant sheep that don't even get it.

 

Well, there is a military budget that is about half waste and corporate welfare.

Funny how THOSE defense contractor parasites aren't EVER on the Right Wing's chopping block.

 

They have to break Grover Norquists Pledge, this is war, class warfare and forcing them to break that pledge is like firing the first shot at bunker hill.

Entitlements can be paid for, but it means that we have to adopt socialism as seen in Europe, where the average tax rate of the citizen is over 50 percent of their income.

The Europeans have gave their wealthy tax breaks through loopholes, that is why they are facing bankruptcy in Greece, but once they force everyone to pay the math will work.

It just has to be 50/50, Romney said 47 percent of the country are net recipients, or dependent on government, so if the other half who are net contributors pay for them, the math will work, it is a mathematical certainty.

 

You are, of course, referring to the high paying jobs that the Republicans shipped to third world countries so that they could make the millions necessary to hire the lobbyists to corrupt the government in their favor.

 

OK I want this graphed against the actual fluctuation of GDP. You need to show the relationship of what happened under recessions. You know that this wasn't accounted for here. I would expect a percentage increase in a recession vs a decrease in an economic surge. Lets eliminate the noise in the equations.

 

The real question is why the hell would you leave a child in such a home. Take these kids away from the parents that will not feed and clothe them before cutting off the benefits to the deadbeats. What is so hard about understanding how to deal with slugs?

 

That already is referenced by GDP, so I'm kinda confused what you're asking for. The graph is welfare and entitlement spending without medicare/medicaid as a portion of GDP.

 

Um... Except for the fact that our entitlements apparently aren't growing. Our health care costs are.

Your chart does not cover Medicare or Medicate. So what impact is health care having on people who are getting theirs from the government? Your chart shows that welfare has gone to the highest level in our history and you seem to think that, that is ok because there have been some dips during times of economic recovery. During those dips that you are so proud of the number of people dependent on government dips much less than the GDP rises.