These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed! Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2012, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid andother benefits, the average U.S. Household below the poverty line received $168.00 a day in government
support. What’s the problem with that much support? Well, the median household income in America is just
over $50,000,which averages out to $137.13 a day. To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the
equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $20.00 an hour.
CHECK THIS OUT:
The percentage of each past president’s cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet.
Here are the percentages.
T. Roosevelt……………….. 38%
Taft………………………….. 40%
Wilson ……………………… 52%
Harding……………………… 49%
Coolidge……………………. 48%
Hoover ………………………. 42%
F. Roosevelt………………… 50%
Truman……………………… 50%
Eisenhower……………. …. 57%
Kennedy……………………. 30%
Johnson…………………….. 47%
Nixon………………………… 53%
Ford………………………….. 42%
Carter……………………….. 32%
Reagan………………………. 56%
GH Bush…………………….. 51%
Clinton …………………….. 39%
GW Bush…………………… 55%
Obama……………………….. 8%
This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in private business!
That’s right! Only eight percent—the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business?
How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he’s never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it’s the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They’ve spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as “community organizers.”
Thanks go to Harold for this information.
*sigh* So this blog is now just republishing stupid Facebook memes/chain e-mails, huh?
This nonsense was debunked months ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/a-misleading-chart-on-welfare-spending/2013/02/20/1b40bcde-7ba4-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_blog.html
http://markmartinezshow.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-168-per-day-welfare-lie-and-our.html
http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-astounding-new-right-wing-lie-about-economy-born
The average welfare recipient only recieves about $129 a month in government assistance.
http://www.cbpp.org/files/1-14-13fa/CA.pdf
The claim that 11 states have more people on welfare than working is also a complete lie; the actual number of states where that is the case is zero.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/jan/11/chain-email/chain-email-says-11-states-have-more-people-welfar/
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/01/death-spiral-states/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/deathspiral.asp
The idea that anyone is getting $168 a day in government aid is simply hilarious to anyone who has actually been in the position to require government assistance. Anyone who believes this lie has clearly never been in that position, nor do they care to do ten minutes of research to find out that it is a lie. They’d rather just believe whatever confirms their political biases. They don’t care if it’s true.
I mean, is that really too much to ask of the bloggers here? That you do ten minutes of research to find out if the absurd claims you are making are factually true or not? These lies have REAL CONSEQUENCES. By spreading them, you are creating division and promoting stereotypical views of the poor. You are using lies and exaggerations to influence people into believing that welfare programs need to be defunded, because welfare recipients are just raking in the government dough. That is the entire purpose of these lies. They are designed to sway elections. It is disgusting and dishonest.
I don’t have details on the claim about private business experience of Obama’s cabinet, but given the multiple false claims that precede it, why should anyone believe that? Especially when there is no citation or evidence provided to justify this claim?
So yeah, thanks Harold, for showing how fundamentally stupid and dishonest the conservative movement has become. This movement now thrives on its gullible members being duped by phony chain e-mails and professional liars like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. You have more “respectable” institutions like the Heritage Foundation, but they are simply doing the bidding of the corporations that fund them and they are not taken seriously outside of the conservative echo chamber. You will believe ANYTHING, no matter how prima facie ridiculous, as long as it makes Obama look bad. You don’t care about the truth, you care about winning at all costs.
Chris here is the response from the office that produced the graph you called completely false because the Washington Post called it false. “Who watches the Post’s watchman? Your piece is disappointingly anti-intellectual, appealing to sentiment over reason. No reasonable analysis can exclude the cost of providing low-income families with subsidized health care when calculating the total financial aid that they receive.
You claim our chart is inaccurate and yet you fail to provide your readers with the math. So here it is: according to CRS’ report (which you do not contest), spending on 80-plus federal poverty programs equals $746 billion per year. Include state contributions to those programs and it grows to over $1 trillion. (That number would be even larger if one added spending on state- and local-run programs, which we did not.) By comparison, we spend $480 billion on Medicare, $540 billion on defense, and $725 billion on Social Security.
Although you did not acknowledge it, the Committee released the charts with a detailed and extensive explanation of the underlying methodology. As our release stated, “almost 110 million Americans received some form of means-tested welfare in 2011.” We then went on to explain that if “the $1 trillion spent on federal welfare programs [were] converted into cash and divided exclusively among the 16.8 million households who lived beneath the federal poverty line last year, the government would be able to mail each of those households an annual check for $60,000.” The release concluding by saying that “this figure underscores the fragmented, inefficient nature of welfare in this country.”
We can have a political debate about what to call these poverty programs, how to most effectively allocate our resources, and what kind of reforms would best alleviate the chronic poverty created by the Left’s policies. What is not debatable is the math. Unlike your post, our analysis is honest, accurate and, most importantly, a constructive step towards helping those in need.”
I decided to verify the 8% claim forwarded in this bullshit chain e-mail.
Surprise! Like everything else in the e-mail, it’s false.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2012/oct/08/chain-email/private-sector-experience-short-supply-obama-admin/
So false, in fact, that the author who originally calculated the 8% figure withdrew his conclusions after being corrected.
http://www.volokh.com/2009/11/25/private-sector-experience-of-cabinet-secretaries/
Bravo Jack!
Legacy? Hmmm. Let’s add some prophecy from the past. This used to give me goose bumps as a kid. It does today as well, but for very different reasons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CtjhWhw2I8
OBAMA RATED FIFTH BEST PRESIDENT IN OUR HISTORY
Even if you differ with the result, you have to admire the method.
Of the total of 44 U.S. Presidents: Obama was rated the fifth best President ever.
I was just reading a Democratic publicity release that said, “… after a little more than five years, President Obama has been rated the fifth best President ever.”
The details were given by a White House spokesman:
* Reagan, Lincoln, and 8 others tied for first,
* 15 presidents tied for second,
* 17 other presidents tied for third,
* Jimmy Carter came in 4th, and
* Obama came in fifth!
Now that’s government math!
Thanks for the chuckle Harold! And gosh, he won the Pulitzer before he even had a chance to create a claim legacy. Can any other President outdo him on that?
Is the world upside down or what!
Check out the video on our “secure” border.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/07/Ex-Border-Patrol-agents-American-politicians-helping-cartels-invest-millions-to-build-criminal-network-inside-U-S-Ex-Border-Patrol-agents-American-politicians-helping-cartels-invest-millions-to-build-criminal-network-inside-U-S
Jack, Sessions’ spokesman’s defense does not address the key flaws pointed out in Kessler’s fact check, and it repeats the same faulty math.
As Kessler explained, Sessions included Medicaid spending in his calculation of how much government aid the average household living in poverty receives a year. He claims that this is higher than the average median income (60k v. 50k), but in order to get the lower number, he leaves out health benefits such as employer-provided health care. That’s usually considered part of an employee’s income, but it’s not considered in Sessions’ calculations, because doing so wouldn’t get him the result he wanted. That’s why Kessler says he is “comparing apples and oranges”–it makes no sense to include healthcare spending as part of welfare, but not include it as part of income, if you want an accurate comparison between welfare and income.
If what you want, however, is not accuracy, but results that will confirm an ideological belief that the government is spending too much money on poor people so that more Republicans will be elected, than doing so makes perfect sense.
Sessions either should have left Medicare spending out of the equation, or factored employer-provided healthcare in. Only using one factor and not the other is dishonest and inaccurate, and clearly designed to tilt the math in his favor. It was a partisan, agenda-driven study.
Kessler also explains why it’s wrong to divide simply by the number of people living in poverty, since millions of people above the poverty level receive the type of government aid Sessions constitutes as “welfare” (including things like Pell Grants, which Sessions used to go to college).
Even Robert Reich of the Heritage Foundation agrees that this was the wrong denominator:
“In testimony before the House Budget Committee in 2012, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation said that simply dividing the means-tested spending by the number of the poor “can be misleading because many persons with incomes above the official poverty levels also receive means-tested aid.” He recommended dividing the figure by the bottom third of the income distribution, which yielded a figure of $36,000 for a family of four.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a report this month, had an even more nuanced approach, estimating the average federal spending per household in 2006 for the 10 largest means-tested programs (worth about 75 percent of Sessions’s total) by different income quintiles (See Box 1.) For the lowest quintile, the figure is nearly $9,000, after adjusting to 2012 dollars.”
Obviously, if you use a smaller denominator you are going to get a bigger number, and that’s why Sessions’ team divided by the number of people living in poverty rather than the total number of people using the programs he is referring to. Even the country’s premier conservative think tank knows that the average household receiving welfare is not making anywhere close to the average median income. And if you go non-partisan, you get a number that is only a fourth of what Heritage concluded.
Sessions’ “defense” did not address any of these concerns; it’s as if they didn’t even read the fact check they were responding to.
So the assertion that the average household receiving government assistance is making more money than the average working family is still an indefensible lie. And it’s an *obvious* lie. In order to believe it, your partisanship has to have totally overridden your common sense and reasoning skills.
Lies like this are a direct attack on families such as mine. Because my family receives food stamps, we are stereotyped as lazy and irresponsible, even though we have jobs and are working hard to get off of welfare. I am a college graduate working toward my teaching credential so I can make a better life–and for that I am also attacked, for allegedly attending a “liberal indoctrination center” (Tm Tina), for “stealing” taxpayer money to attend college (Tm Nick), for taking a “cushy” government job instead of one in the private sector (Tina again), and for using my teaching position to allegedly indoctrinate others into liberal ideology (Pie Guevara). There’s just no winning with you people.
You did not respond to the two other lies in this article, Jack; I showed that it is false that 11 states have more people on welfare than working (the correct number is zero), and that it is false that only 8% of Obama’s cabinet has worked in the private sector. Every word of this article submitted by Harold and posted by you was a lie. And for copying and pasting a faulty “defense” of only one of these lies, you get a “Bravo Jack!” from Tina? More proof that all you people care about is validating your preconceived biases, truth be damned.
Chris you ridicule Sessions saying that his calculations are agenda driven and then go on to explain very carefully how if you use different criteria to arrive at a much lower number its honest and not agenda driven. That’s utter poppycock.
Progressives have a vested interest in crunching the numbers in a manner that makes it seem like we don’t do enough and don’t spend enough.
You, Jack and I all know that this issue can be looked at in a number of ways resulting in a different outcome. Your estimation that Sessions number was “completely false” is false. Aren’t you the one who demands perfection of others…where’s that mirror, I know it’s around here somewhere.
The report that you slam as “stupid Facebook memes or chain email was an official Senate Budget Committee report. Democrats control the Senate and are represented on the committee.
The report includes this information as reported at TownHall:
One of the reasons for this excessive spending is the lousy economy. Progressive policy has destroyed the economy. It isn’t just those who are unable to work getting this free money. It represents a lot of citizens who are capable of working but can’t find work.
The recession officially ended in the spring of 2009. Obama at that point was on a level playing field and had every opportunity to create a vibrant economy and plenty of jobs. He chose instead to push his redistribution agenda and feed the masses crumbs while ignoring the growing numbers falling into poverty, ignoring those that gave up trying to find work, and even ignoring the fact that the black community unemployment in some areas has skyrocketed to nearly 50%.
This is unacceptable not just from the standpoint of the money which really means debt at this point but also in terms of human dignity.
You defend it. Why?
Also you should be extremely concerned about the money because it is your future at stake! You should be very concerned that our citizens have been forced into poverty such that:
If the numbers in poverty continue to grow, and there is very little evidence that the economy will improve, you will soon live in a nation that cannot pay its bills, cannot defend itself and is mired in debt…a junk nation.
Why are you continuing to defend this administration?
Must I look up your many criticisms of the last administrations economic conditions which by comparison stands head and shoulders above the Obama economy?
Tina: “Chris you ridicule Sessions saying that his calculations are agenda driven and then go on to explain very carefully how if you use different criteria to arrive at a much lower number its honest and not agenda driven. That’s utter poppycock.”
Only to someone who doesn’t understand basic math.
Look, I explained very clearly and carefully why Sessions’ numbers didn’t make any sense. This isn’t a case where there is a philosophical disagreement over which numbers produce more reliable data. This is a case where Sessions is clearly using bad data.
It literally *makes no sense* to divide by the number of people under the poverty line to figure out the average amount in welfare paid out to people receiving it. As even Heritage pointed out, you have to divide by the number of people receiving welfare, which includes millions of people above the poverty line.
It also *makes no sense* to consider healthcare spending as a part of welfare but not consider it as a part of income. The ONLY reason to do this is to make welfare look more profitable than work.
Like Sessions’ spokesman, you had no actual rebuttal to these concerns. That’s because you either don’t understand them, or you know that they are correct and that you have no substantive defense of the data used by Sessions. So instead you make vague arguments about how progressives have an agenda too. That doesn’t cut it, Tina. You have to actually explain why Sessions’ calculations are correct, and the criticisms of them are wrong.
But that would require more work on your part than “I believe it because I want to,” which is literally the only reason you are siding with Sessions here.
“Progressives have a vested interest in crunching the numbers in a manner that makes it seem like we don’t do enough and don’t spend enough.”
So…the Heritage Foundation is “progressive” now?
“You, Jack and I all know that this issue can be looked at in a number of ways resulting in a different outcome. Your estimation that Sessions number was “completely false” is false.”
Again, no. This is not a subjective issue. There are objective reasons why Sessions’ calculations are nonsense and would never be accepted in a remedial statistics class. He is simply not using the right factors to obtain the answer he claims to be looking for. Dividing by the number of poor people is as valid at determining average welfare payments as dividing by the number of people Sessions saw at the food stamp office on a Wednesday. Furthermore, by including healthcare spending as part of welfare but not income, he is comparing apples and oranges.
If you have an actual response to these valid criticisms, make one. Your generalized digs at “progressives” like Robert Reich aren’t good enough, and simply reveal that you don’t understand the math that you’re talking about.
“The report that you slam as “stupid Facebook memes or chain email was an official Senate Budget Committee report.”
So you’re bad at math and reading. I never slammed any official report. I used the phrase you quote to describe this article as a whole, and I was correct; this is copied and pasted verbatim from a Facebook meme that has been making the rounds, as you can easily discover by using this newfangled invention called the Internet. (I think you’d like it; you can even use it to start a blog!)
The text of the Facebook meme does cite the Senate Budget Committee, but it does so while lying about it. It says:
“Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2012, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid andother benefits, the average U.S. Household below the poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.”
The Senate Budget Committee never reported any such thing.
Again, every single word of this article is a complete lie. You or Jack need to either retract this article or admit that the information contained in it is false. By refusing to do so, you are saying that it is OK for wealthy politicians to use families like mine to deceive the American public.
“This is not a subjective issue.”
Oh but it is. Statistics are used all the time to make a point and depending on how the stats are mined different outcomes can be concluded. Sessions committee report also deliberately left out the state contributions which would have made the amount some “poor people” receive for doing nothing even more outrageous. If the purpose was simply a partisan trick rather than to make the point that we are a nation that is spending an incredible amount on welfare, some for persons capable of working but who cannot find work, they would have used those numbers to skew the results even higher.
“I used the phrase you quote to describe this article as a whole, and I was correct; this is copied and pasted verbatim from a Facebook meme…”
And it was taken from an actual report by a Senate committee with Democrats on the committee. The math is correct given the stats used. The argument is not with the math, but with the approach. I have no problem with taking a different approach and coming to a different conclusion. You and others did a fine job pointing to the alternate method and conclusion.
I do have a problem with the disrespectful name-calling and the superior attitude you exude, an attitude that suggests there is no other valid way to look at a problem of growing poverty other than one that exonerates the failing liberal policies that have led to growing poverty, deeper debt, and loss of opportunity for all including the most vulnerable.
You, of all people, should be outraged and all you do is nitpick over irrelevant methods.
The reality on the ground, and the point of the report, remains the same regardless the method used to make it.
“By refusing to do so, you are saying that it is OK for wealthy politicians to use families like mine to deceive the American public.:
Chris you are self interested, covetous, and unable to look beyond your own experience and situation to arrive at conclusions even when they would be in your own best interests. Not only that your prejudice against “wealthy politicians,” or the wealthy in general, is unreasonable, unhealthy, and unrelated to the purpose of the committees report and the intentions of Republicans and conservatives!
Your threats and your constant personal attacks are more worthy of retraction than is this article.
Tina, you still have not acknowledged the obvious flaws in the data used by Sessions, nor have you attempted to defend those flaws.
“And it was taken from an actual report by a Senate committee with Democrats on the committee.”
No, it wasn’t. I already explained this. The $168 number was never reported by the senate committee, nor were any of the other false claims made in this Facebook meme. Why do you make me repeat myself?
“The math is correct given the stats used.”
BUT THEY WERE THE WRONG STATS TO USE. You have no way to dispute this, and you know that, which is why you aren’t even trying. Once again, you are trying to paint me as some kind of bully for being outraged over clear, obvious lies.
“You, of all people, should be outraged and all you do is nitpick over irrelevant methods.”
I’m not “nitpicking,” and the methods are not “irrelevant” when they lead to a conclusion that is so far from the truth as to be comical. Again, the claim that the average welfare recipient gets $168 in welfare a day is absurd on its face. And when you actually look at the numbers used, it is very easy to see how Sessions’ team got that ridiculous number; they used factors that don’t make any sense.
The dishonesty here is not “irrelevant.” It is all part of an attempt to create a false narrative that paints welfare recipients as lazy and rolling government goodies. To make a mockery of our struggles this way, while at the same time claiming that the wealthy have it too hard in this country, is immoral and, to be frank, un-Christian.
“The reality on the ground, and the point of the report, remains the same regardless the method used to make it.”
No. The point of Sessions’ calculations was to show that the average family on welfare can make more money than the average worker. THAT IS NOT TRUE. THAT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO “REALITY.” It is only possible to come to that conclusion by using obviously flawed methods.
I know you don’t understand this, and that you think the methodology of Sessions’ team is equally valid to those used by Heritage or the CBO, but that’s only because you are not very smart.
That’s not a judgment, it’s just a fact; you haven’t been able to marshal any defense of the obvious flaws of the methodology, because you literally don’t know how to do that. You don’t know how to impartially examine evidence, logic and data and come to a rational conclusion. And that’s fine, not everyone does. But that’s why you need to know when to listen to people who are smarter than you and actually do know how to do that, even if they use their knowledge to reach conclusions that you don’t like.
“Your threats and your constant personal attacks are more worthy of retraction than is this article.”
Again: Every word in this article was false. NO ONE here has been able to defend the criticisms leveled against it. No one has even tried. As usual, because you do not have the evidence or data on your side to justify your absurd claims, you instead try to distract from the lies you posted by making generalized accusations against liberals, criticizing my tone (which is justifiably angry given your pattern of lying, denying that you lied even though the evidence is obvious, and then acting like the lies don’t matter and I am the Worst Person in the World for pointing those lies out), and drawing absurd moral equivalences.
This Facebook meme is a personal attack on my family and millions of families like mine who are in danger of losing their benefits if you convince enough people to elect people dumb enough to believe memes like this, or dishonest enough to create them even when they know they aren’t true. I only resorted to personal critiques of your character because this is a pattern with you. Everything I have said to you here has been well deserved. You are not an honest person, and you will say and defend anything that pushes your narrative, no matter how ridiculously untrue.
As usual, if you don’t like me pointing that out, then the solution is to double-check the absurd claims you want to make before you post them here, that way you won’t feel the need to double down on them later after they have been proven objectively false. It would have been really easy to fact-check this meme before you posted it. You would have found many sites that have looked closely at the methodology used and explained, in clear English, why it doesn’t make any sense. But you don’t seem to have any interest in running a blog that checks its facts. Your main goal is to push a narrative, and you’ll post anything that furthers it.
7pm on right now Fox News Report: Food Stamp Binge. May repeat again at 10pm during the Greta Van Susteren show.
Peggy: “7pm on right now Fox News Report: Food Stamp Binge. May repeat again at 10pm during the Greta Van Susteren show.”
Sure to be misinformation you can’t miss!
Chris: “No, it wasn’t. I already explained this. The $168 number was never reported by the senate committee, nor were any of the other false claims made in this Facebook meme. Why do you make me repeat myself?”
Get off the high horse Chris. The figure comes directly from the Congressional report. See the graphs and paragraph from the report posted at TownHall!
Note too that the report is meant to serve as an average cost analysis for consideration regarding economic policy and job creation and not as an indictment on people in poverty!!!!!!!!!
“BUT THEY WERE THE WRONG STATS TO USE.”
God you are arrogant. The stats used were just fine for the purpose of the report.
“Once again, you are trying to paint me as some kind of bully for being outraged over clear, obvious lies.”
No, I am simply saying there are a number of ways to look at statistics. You are free to point out another way to look at them and show that a different conclusion results. Instead you waste time insulting people and calling them liars. Why? It serves no purpose other than making it very unpleasant to discuss anything with you.
You have the honor and privilege of posting information and opinion from the left at Post Scripts. Can’t you do that without resorting to demeaning language? People can decide for themselves whether the $168 a day figure has relevance.
“…while at the same time claiming that the wealthy have it too hard in this country.
NO ONE has made that assertion! No One!!!
How can you fail to understand that policy to encourage investment by people who can afford it is to make things better for them rather than to make opportunities greater for all Americans? How, particularly after seeing the result of five years of spending by government and continued high unemployment with college grads working at WallMart, can you fail to see that private sector investment is very important for those who need good jobs? How can you fail to see that it is ridiculous, however you calculate it, that people who don’t work can make more, as much, or even almost as much as those who work? When will the reality of our circumstances begin to penetrate the wall in that indoctrinated, emotionally driven brain activity? It will set you free young man, I promise to understand the point is not to harm people but to give them a ticket to ride in a prosperous economy!!!
I will not even read the rest of your emotional rant. I’m once again done.
When attempting to calculate welfare, food stamps, and other benefits there are multiple things to consider and the 50 states complicate the matter since states have different methods and rules. The federal government lists the following on it’s webpage:
Recipients may also qualify for child care, medical, and housing allowance. Consider too that children in school can eat at school in some cases for breakfast, lunch, and dinner making those food stamps really stretch.
On top of this is the bureaucratic cost to administer these programs, some of which overlap, at the state and federal levels.
It seems like we are spending more all the time to trap a whole lot of people in perpetual dependence and I for one find that the real sin in all of this. Our government has no business enabling people to settle for a life of dependency while strapping those who work with the bill. That they do it for votes is unconscionable!
Hey Chris, is this guy a relative or just someone you’d hang out with?
This should piss off every taxpayer! This guy chooses to not work, but eats lobster and sushi, smokes and drinks AZ tea and thinks there’s nothing wrong with what he’s doing.
The new face of SNAP? Food stamps buy lobster for surfer and his buddies: (Two videos)
http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/10/the-new-face-of-snap-food-stamps-buy-lobster-for-surfer-and-his-buddies/
Tina: “The figure comes directly from the Congressional report.”
On this point you were right and I apologize. However, the report in question was crafted by Sessions and is exactly the item under fire by fact checkers. The fact that it is an “official report” does not make the calculations used any better; they are objectively terrible, and your appeal to authority doesn’t change that.
“God you are arrogant. The stats used were just fine for the purpose of the report.”
You seem to believe that if you just repeat the same falsehoods over and over again, they will magically become true. I’ve asked you repeatedly to explain HOW the stats Sessions used are “fine” despite the criticism from the Post and even Heritage, but you refuse to give any explanation. You won’t even acknowledge the details of the critiques. Now that’s arrogance; thinking that you can just assert something without having to back it up with evidence or reason, and that everyone should just accept what you’ve said as truth.
“No, I am simply saying there are a number of ways to look at statistics.”
Yes, but some ways are clearly flawed. I have shown you the flaws in Sessions’ data that have been pointed out by the Post and Heritage and numerous others. If you want to defend the study as legitimate, you have to actually defend those flaws and show how they are actually valid methods. But you refuse to do that. You can’t and won’t engage on the merits of the criticism against Sessions’ study, so instead you try and pretend those criticisms away and act as if Sessions’ methodology is equally valid to those of the Post and Heritage *just because you say so*, when anyone even remotely familiar with statistics knows it is not.
You do this so you can let yourself off the hook for choosing to believe in flawed, agenda-driven studies just because they tell you what you want to hear. Since you believe everyone does this, but that liberals do it more, you see no reason not to do it yourself. Data? Who cares about data? Numbers can mean anything, right? This mindset is dishonest and cynical, and anathema to any genuine pursuit of the truth.
“Instead you waste time insulting people and calling them liars. Why?”
When you continue to repeat the same assertions even after they have been proven false, and refuse to respond to the valid counter-arguments and evidence that has been presented in order to prove those assertions false, you are lying. That is not an insult, that is a fact. Pointing that out serves a very important purpose; people should not be able to get away with lying without having someone point it out. And people should know when they are receiving information from a source that has a history of lying.
Peggy, trying to characterize that loser as “the new face of SNAP” is inaccurate and disgusting.
In reality, the fraud and waste rate in the SNAP program is only about 1%.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Other/BuildingHealthyAmerica.pdf
41% of SNAP recipients live in a household with earnings, and most are children are elderly:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2011CharacteristicsSummary.pdf
You can find out more facts about the SNAP program at the above link. That is, if you’re interested in facts, and not demonizing propaganda.
FOX is using a few isolated incidents to try and indict the entire program. Do they really believe their audience is stupid enough to fall for such anecdotal evidence, when the real facts are so relatively available?
And more importantly: are they right?
Judging by the responses to this article–which has had every single point proven false, yet no conservative commenter here has admitted that ANY of them are false–the answer is “yes.”
Ugh. The above should say “most are children OR adults,” and “when the real facts are so readily available.” I type too fast when I am pissed off.
Chris: “the report in question was crafted by Sessions…your appeal to authority doesn’t change that.”
Sessions along with others, including Democrats on the committee, created the report. The authority is the Senate committee. The nit picking is tiring.
“Now that’s arrogance; thinking that you can just assert something without having to back it up with evidence or reason”
I have asserted only that statistics can be used to prove any point. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. The purpose for using the statistics is what is being avoided and the distraction that using different statistics will create a different result doesn’t change the horrific reasons that we are spending so much on programs that often overlap…the lousy jobs picture and a tangle of bureaucracy!
“I have shown you the flaws in Sessions’ data that have been pointed out by the Post and Heritage and numerous others…”
And avoided the fact that the jobs picture in America SUCKS under Obama. And avoided the fact that the federal bureaucracy is so big and complex that it duplicates benefits and wastes huge amounts of taxpayer dollars! (As an aside…you have NEVER thought Heritage was a good source. Now all of a sudden they are?)
“When you continue to repeat the same assertions even after they have been proven false…”
False Chris, or just not all inclusive?
The fact that people can make a pretty damn good “living” feeding off of others with government assistance when they are perfectly capable of working is a BIG problem made worse by the incompetent (or purposeful!!!!) policies of the current administration is relevant. It is more relevant than any statistical argument made by you or the congressional committee and Sessions. It is the only thing the American people SHOULD care about which is why Sessions is making the “agenda driven” case that Americans should mhave more opportunity to work and provide for themselves and the government should be more responsible in creating that opportunity instead of making it more attractive to live off the government (TAXPAYER!).
“And people should know when they are receiving information from a source that has a history of lying.”
People should also be allowed to decide for themselves who is lying. They also have the right to be shown when they are being deceived and their attention diverted away from relevant points with silly distractions and petty arguments.
If you had any interest in discovering what Jack’s purpose in posting this article was it might make continuing with you worth my time. So far there isno indication that you care…so I’m done.
Peggy I was already here and already keyed up, so:
CNS News:
We have an economic tragedy/disaster going on and this is but one of the indicators! The lobster eating, surfer dude who sponges off his friends and the taxpayers represents the mindset of too many citizens today…and this administration just keeps saying, “Come on down!”
Tina: “I have asserted only that statistics can be used to prove any point.”
Yes, which is why you need to look carefully at statistics and make sure they are being used correctly. Clearly, you have no interest in doing that.
“And avoided the fact that the jobs picture in America SUCKS under Obama. And avoided the fact that the federal bureaucracy is so big and complex that it duplicates benefits and wastes huge amounts of taxpayer dollars!”
Because neither of those “facts” changes the fact that every single sentence written in this article is a complete and total lie. Why am I expected to address the “facts” you bring up in order to dodge justified criticism, but you aren’t required to ever address facts that contradict your worldview? You still have not acknowledged the many, many inaccuracies in this article, and you never will, because you don’t care. You are all but admitting that the details of statistics don’t matter to you; what’s important is the Narrative.
“(As an aside…you have NEVER thought Heritage was a good source. Now all of a sudden they are?)”
When a source declares something that goes against their agenda, that gives added credibility to their claims. Heritage has a vested interest in reducing the amount of money spent on welfare. This is a cause they have championed for decades. If even they are saying Sessions is wrong, and the amount of money spent per recipient is actually much lower, then it makes sense to listen to them. In this case they are putting facts above ideology. I wish they’d do that more.
“The fact that people can make a pretty damn good “living” feeding off of others with government assistance when they are perfectly capable of working is a BIG problem”
Except that the only evidence you’ve provided to show that this is even happening has been proven to be complete and total bullshit. The average welfare recipient only gets about $129 per month in assistance. That is hardly a “good living.”
“It is more relevant than any statistical argument made by you or the congressional committee and Sessions. It is the only thing the American people SHOULD care about which is why Sessions is making the “agenda driven” case that Americans should mhave more opportunity to work and provide for themselves and the government should be more responsible in creating that opportunity instead of making it more attractive to live off the government (TAXPAYER!).”
Wow. You actually are arguing that the evidence used to support the points you’re making isn’t relevant. What’s relevant is the larger point. A larger point that you make by citing faulty evidence. That’s…amazingly stupid and anti-intellectual, even for you.
“If you had any interest in discovering what Jack’s purpose in posting this article was it might make continuing with you worth my time. So far there isno indication that you care…so I’m done.”
Right. The “purpose” is what matters. Who cares if any of the actual facts were true? You certainly don’t.
You’re “done” because you have no way to defend any of the lies posted on this article, and you know it. You’re a liar, and you think it’s OK because you are doing it for a larger purpose. How Christian of you.
Tina, the surfer dude was just an example of what is wrong with the current food stamp assistance program aka SNAP. Not all recipients are like him, but with the current “recruitment” program set up by this administration there are many more, when even one is too many. As the interviewer said he found it hard to believe the guy seemed to have no shame with his chosen life-style. Decades ago people were, for the most part, ashamed to be “on the dole” for getting government charity, but now it’s viewed as an entitlement. And those who don’t take advantage of everything “free” the government has to give away are viewed as stupid.
Here is a video with the interviewer from the “The Great Food Stamp Bing” documentary worth seeing.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2595939475001/a-look-at-fox-news-reporting-the-great-food-stamp-binge/
The internet is just full of links about states “recruiting” applicants and the rising cost to us taxpayers and why our economy is not recovering when people given the choice find life easier to live off of hand-outs instead of having a job.
President Clinton along with the Republican controlled Congress had it right when they passed the Workforce Initiative Job Plan. Obama regrettably undid the law in his stimulus plan.
Here is another good article from the Heritage Network, hopefully, our next president and Republican controlled Congress will implement again.
Seven Reasons to Reform Food Stamps:
Food stamps were a popular topic of conversation last month as Congress debated the farm bill. This decades-old Great Society program is in much need of reform for at least seven reasons:
Food stamp spending has surged. Costs have been climbing since the program began in the 1960s, recession or not. Over roughly the past decade, food stamp spending jumped from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $84.6 billion in 2011.
Food stamp rolls have also been climbing for decades, regardless of the economic situation. Today, food stamp use is at an all-time high, with the most recent data showing that about one in seven people participate in the program. This is a 140 percent increase since 1990.
Government has vastly expanded food stamp eligibility. “Broad-based categorical eligibility,” put in place under the Clinton Administration and heavily pushed by the Obama Administration, loosens income and asset limits. That the number of households receiving food stamps has increased faster than households near the poverty line indicates that changes in food stamp policy helped boost the rolls.
States are spending taxpayer money to “recruit” food stamp participants who might not otherwise choose to use them. From advertisements, aggressive tactics, and enrollment quotas used by recruitment agents, it seems like Uncle Sam wants you on food stamps.
Despite what the left claims, food stamps don’t stimulate the economy. Every dollar spent on food stamps is a dollar that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Therefore, it simply shuffles resources rather than adding economic growth.
Even in good economic times, many food stamp recipients don’t work. In 2010, among the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps that contained an able-bodied, non-elderly adult, 5.5 million did not perform any work. Of those who did work, 1.5 million to 2 million worked less than 30 hours per week.
Food stamps discourage work and self-sufficiency. “The more income that a person receives when not working, the less is the reward to working,” University of Chicago Professor Casey Mulligan testified before Congress earlier this year. “In such cases, a person might have more resources available to use or save as a consequence of working less.” Because food stamp benefits are reduced by 30 cents for each dollar of net income a recipient earns, the program behaves like an income tax paid by recipients via reduced benefits. Thus, food stamps can often act as a disincentive to work. Mulligan estimates that this disincentive has actually prolonged the weak labor market recovery.
Policymakers should reform food stamps to promote self-sufficiency through work and roll back food stamp spending when employment rates improve. These changes would promote not only fiscal responsibility but, more importantly, personal responsibility and human dignity.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/04/seven-reasons-to-reform-food-stamps/
“The Great Food Stamp Bing” documentary doesn’t appear to be on-line yet, but when it is I recommend everyone to see it.
Peggy: “Not all recipients are like him, but with the current “recruitment” program set up by this administration there are many more, when even one is too many.”
And yet FOX News and its loyal sheep decide to portray him as the “face” of SNAP, despite your admission that he is not representative. Classy.
“The internet is just full of links about states “recruiting” applicants and the rising cost to us taxpayers and why our economy is not recovering when people given the choice find life easier to live off of hand-outs instead of having a job.”
If you honestly believe that is why our economy is not recovering, you’re an idiot.
“President Clinton along with the Republican controlled Congress had it right when they passed the Workforce Initiative Job Plan. Obama regrettably undid the law in his stimulus plan.”
Did you just make that up right now? There is nothing even called the “Workforce Initiative Job Plan.” I found that Clinton did pass something called the “Workforce Investment Job Plan,” but I can’t find any source saying that the law was ever undone. That’s not even mentioned on the law’s Wikipedia page. What is your source for this claim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_Investment_Act_of_1998
Heritage refers to SNAP as a “Great Society” program. Why has that term become a slur for Republicans? Contrary to what so many on the right believe, the Great Society did not force more people into poverty. It cut the poverty rate by half in under a decade.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfarepoverty.htm
That must be another fact Heritage and FOX News didn’t tell you.
Heritage also writes:
“Despite what the left claims, food stamps don’t stimulate the economy. Every dollar spent on food stamps is a dollar that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Therefore, it simply shuffles resources rather than adding economic growth.”
This is garbage. Food stamps are stimulative because they are spent *immediately.* It doesn’t matter if “every dollar spent on food stamps is a dollar that would otherwise be spent elsewhere,” because those dollars might be saved up in a bank somewhere (in the cases of many of America’s wealthy elite, that might not even be in America) for years without being spent, instead of pumped back into our economy.
Moody’s Analytics studied the issue and found that food stamps are the most effective form of stimulus, and increase economic activity by $1.73 for every dollar spent.
http://www.economist.com/node/18958475
You may remember that the CBO also ranked food stamps as the most effective way to stimulate the economy. On that same list they ranked tax cuts for the wealthy as the least effective way to stimulate the economy. That’s because tax cuts on the rich have no stimulative value. They do nothing to increase demand. Aid to the poor, however, does increase demand. This is basic economics; so basic that even the architect of Reagan’s big tax cut, Bruce Bartlett, now advocates for more stimulus and against tax cuts on the wealthy.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revenge-of-the-reality-based-community/
For his simple acknowledgment of reality, Bartlett has been practically exiled by his conservative colleagues. Those who advocate against food stamps are simply incapable of being swayed by the evidence.
According to the graph posted here the poverty rate was already falling when Johnson did his Great Society number on America. The chart only goes to 2007 but it’s safe to say that since Johnson’s poverty programs were enacted poverty has remained fairly static. Reports about the Obama years have indicated that poverty is on the rise. Looking at the chart that would mean poverty is now higher than it was when the Great Society programs started.
This article puts the cost of welfare in perspective. Welfare has grown under Obama by 19% (Posted Aug 2012):
Another fine educational paper from 1998 here addresses the moral and psychological reasons the War on Poverty failed. It includes this paragraph:
And wisdom from an economist with personal experience that reaches from the War on Poverty through the eighties. This video was done in 1982 and addresses poverty among blacks mostly.
Dr. Thomas Sowell’s wisdom and experience reach back to the Great Depression. His article includes this:
I didn’t intend to focus solely on poverty in the black community. The Mises piece below addresses poverty in poor white areas like rural Kentucky. Welfare programs have not lifted them from poverty either.
Finally, I highly recommend this retrospective from the Ludwig von Mises Institute for anyone who seriously wants to understand the failures of The War on Poverty as well as the motives behind Johnson’s Great Society.
Tina,
Please address the multiple factual errors I pointed out in the original article before responding to my other comments. You can start by explaining why you believe Sessions’ methodology was sound despite the specific critiques from the Post and Heritage. I have asked you to do this many times, and you have responded by merely asserting that the methodology was “fine,” without offering any explanation for why that is so.
It would also be helpful if you would address the “11 states have more people on welfare than working” lie and the “Only 8% of Obama’s cabinet has private sector experience” lie, which you have so far ignored.
There is little sense in debating any other points with you until you show that you are willing to concede when you are proven wrong, or that at the least, you are willing to make a valid counter-argument to what seems like overwhelming evidence against a certain position (such as your position that Sessions’ methodology was valid despite all available evidence to the contrary). If you can’t do this, why should I waste my time arguing with any of your other points? So far in this discussion you’ve shown yourself to be unswayed by evidence, making healthy debate non-constructive.
Until you acknowledge the errors in this piece, I will not take up any other arguments with you. I will, however, persistently and annoyingly remind you of the errors in this piece until you either admit that they are false, or somehow prove that they are correct.
According to rjg.com the email in question distorted a Forbes article written by an investment strategist that cited the Bureau of Labor statistics among other sources. His article included government workers and those receiving pensions among those he named as “dependent on government for their living”. He included only Medicaid recipients as those receiving “welfare” so his portrait is not entirely accurate either. His purpose was to give advice to anyone thinking of investing in or starting a business and named the states as areas of the country that were unfriendly and costly for business.
I don’t know how the Sessions report became attached to this article unless it too was cited.
I don’t know what your purpose in making me responsible for this entire article is other than the fact that I was willing to reply to your objections by noting that Sessions and his fellow committee members had a point in writing their report and that the point was true even if the statistics were somewhat off.
Now before I will respond to another of your comments I would ask you to respond to the following which is only one of the many things you defend if not with argumentation that sometimes contain erroneous information, then with silence:
You have repeatedly defended Obamacare, a piece of legislation that was written in private, passed only because of bribery and threats, without a single representative or Senator reading and understanding it and without a single Republican’s input or vote.
This legislation has been sold and resold to the American people using lies, distortions, and tricky accounting. It has been called a “train wreck” by one of the congressmen who was bribed for his vote, Max Baucus. Portions of it have been illegally delayed by the President. Waivers have been illegally granted and only apply to certain entities and not others.
Please refrain from your high hat criticism until you can acknowledge the ACA, and the Democrats that push it, are guilty of lying and deceiving the American people. Please acknowledge that your continued support of it makes you an equal among liars and deceivers. The lies of Obam, Pelosi, and Reid are particularly horrendous. They have aspired to positions of power which brings with it great responsibility. They have a fiduciary and a constitutional obligation to the American people….and you can’t seem to bring yourself to question these with the same dog at the heels yapping that you have reserved for Post Scripts and that is unfortunate.
It looks like this article does contain erroneous information. The sentiment, that the left is dangerously big government minded…and no friend to the private sector…that the left does not get that it is dependent on the private sector doing well to make our country work for everyone…that the left refuses to realize that all wealth…all government spending…must first be produced in the private sector is still true. It is still true that government programs that make people rely more on government than they do on themselves are destructive over time and demeaning to the human spirit. It is still true that there are better ways to help the poor…better ways to make our country vibrant and filled with opportunity. And it is still true that the states and cities that have been run by Democrats are the ones failing badly.
I have to leave now…I will check back later.
Tina: “It looks like this article does contain erroneous information.”
Now was that so hard? You could have said that 25 comments ago.
“I don’t know what your purpose in making me responsible for this entire article is”
I did not mean to make you “responsible” for this article, only for your own words and arguments. You were defending a part of this article, and your defense wasn’t evidence-based. You know admit that the statistics were “slightly off” which is good enough for me (even though they were wildly off).
Jack and Harold bear more responsibility for this article being posted here, but they seem to have disappeared from the conversation.
I don’t believe your request about Obamacare is fair, since this article has nothing to do with Obamacare. You are asking me to respond to an issue which no one has brought up in this thread, while I was merely asking you to respond to the topic at hand. But I will respond anyway.
I have addressed many of your charges against the Affordable Care Act before. I do believe this law is deeply flawed and overly complex. I have spent most of our discussions here defending it only because so many of the charges made against it on this blog are not true. You posted a video where a doctor claimed that the PPACA bans women over 50 from getting mammograms; the law actually pays for mammograms for any woman who needs one. You said there would be a massive rise in the cost of premiums; it’s now being reported that that’s not going to happen. You said it would raise the deficit; it actually lowers it. You said there were death panels; there are none.
Here, you say that the law was “was written in private,” but in reality, debates were lengthy and accessible to the public. Wikipedia sums it up thusly (while providing many citations):
“On the Senate side, beginning June 17, 2009, and extending through September 14, 2009, three Democratic and three Republican Senate Finance Committee Members met for a series of 31 meetings to discuss the development of a health care reform bill. Over the course of the next three months, this group, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Mike Enzi (R-WY), met for more than 60 hours, and the principles that they discussed (in conjunction with the other Committees) became the foundation of the Senate’s health care reform bill.[186] The meetings were held in public and broadcast by C-SPAN and can be seen on the C-SPAN web site[187] or at the Committee’s own web site.[188]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#Background
“passed only because of bribery and threats,”
This is called “lobbying” and I’ve advocated for ways to curtail it. You’ve opposed all of these ideas and supported the Citizens United decision, which allows big business to essentially have a major hand in writing our laws.
The biggest problems with the law have to do with key Democratic backers’ close ties with the health insurance lobby:
http://sunlightfoundation.com/tools/2009/healthcare_lobbyist_complex/
“without a single Republican’s input or vote.”
I believe that reflects worse on Republicans than on Democrats. The bill was full of bipartisan ideas. The individual mandate was an idea first proposed by the Heritage Foundation. As recently as 2008, Mitt Romney called the individual mandate “the ultimate conservative idea.” Then all of a sudden, Republicans started arguing that it is unconstitutional. This about-face was purely political. It was about opposing Obamacare just because Obama and the Democrats supported it.
“This legislation has been sold and resold to the American people using lies, distortions, and tricky accounting.”
Most of the examples of alleged “tricky accounting” have been explained and defended by non-partisan sources. And while I won’t say the Democrats have been totally honest about the law, I do believe the propaganda campaign by conservatives have been far worse. For Sarah Palin to user her own son to spread fear about children with disabilities being denied health care by a government “death panel” was perhaps the most cynical, malicious and corrupt statement I have ever seen from a politician. Yes, both parties have lied about the law; but Republicans’ lies are worse.
“Portions of it have been illegally delayed by the President. Waivers have been illegally granted and only apply to certain entities and not others.”
Neither the delays or the waivers are illegal. Waivers have been given to businesses such as restaurants which opposed the law, so your implication that the waivers are political favoritism is bogus.
“They have a fiduciary and a constitutional obligation to the American people…”
The ACA meets the fiduciary responsibility to the American people, since it reduces the deficit and encourages people to get insurance before they get seriously ill.
The constitutional responsibility was addressed by the Supreme Court already.
Tina: “According to the graph posted here the poverty rate was already falling when Johnson did his Great Society number on America…Looking at the chart that would mean poverty is now higher than it was when the Great Society programs started.”
Tina, that graph is taken from the Census Bureau but someone has modified it to incorrectly identify 1968 as the year the “War on Poverty” began, when in fact the first Great Society programs began in 1964. If you look at the years 1964-1969, you see a huge drop in poverty. Only the drop from 1950 to 1959 is comparable, but we haven’t seen a similar drop since. Of course if you start with 1968 it looks like nothing happened, but that’s not when the War on Poverty began, as a quick Google search would have informed the author.
It is also clear from the graph that the poverty rate has not since reached pre-1964 levels. So it is not correct to conclude that “poverty is now higher than it was when the Great Society programs started.” That conclusion is only possible if you wrongly identify 1968, rather than 1964, as the year the Great Society started.
“The chart only goes to 2007 but it’s safe to say that since Johnson’s poverty programs were enacted poverty has remained fairly static.”
Poverty dropped significantly in the first decade, reaching a low in 1974. After that it went back up again, peaking in 1983 and 1992, but never going as high as it was in 1964 when the War on Poverty began (although it did go higher than it was in 1968, the year wrongly identified as the beginning of the War on Poverty. Suspicious.).
That would indicate that the Great Society programs were a success. Poverty has remained fairly static since the ’70s but it is still lower than it was before the Great Society programs were enacted.
Now of course correlation does not prove causation, but conservatives don’t merely argue that the Great Society wasn’t helpful; they say that it’s actively harmful, and increases poverty. If that were in any way true, we should see higher poverty rates after the War on Poverty began. But that’s not the case, unless you randomly decide to say the War on Poverty began in 1968, in which case it does look like poverty rates have gone up since then. But it is clear that the poverty rate has never returned to pre-1964 levels, which hurts the conservative argument that the Great Society encourages poverty.
“This article puts the cost of welfare in perspective. Welfare has grown under Obama by 19% (Posted Aug 2012):”
As a response to the global economic crisis that began before Obama was in office. I don’t think Obama is to blame for the increase in welfare spending. I would also add that countries which have put their efforts into increasing stimulus (which includes welfare spending) have seen more successful recoveries then countries which have implemented austerity measures.
The rest of your links mostly rely on theories and opinions, not hard data, so I don’t really feel the need to counter. I have explained my competing theories and opinions before, and I doubt they would convince you if I explained them again.
Oh Chris you are just so predictable. Somehow I just knew I would push that big red button that is planted right between your eyes. You just couldn’t resist attacking me again because I don’t agree with your political point of view.
Chris: “you’re an idiot.” And you’re a bully! Any time someone presents an opinion or fact you don’t agree with you go into attack mode. Why do you do that Chris? Are you so insecure that you have to browbeat people to agree with everything you say? We all know why people bully others. It really is sad to see such behavior coming from someone with so much potential.
You are no longer on the playground where you get to pick up the ball and go home if everyone doesn’t play by your rules. You are now old enough to be in the adult world where everyone has the right to their opinion and to be treated with respect. And that does apply to you.
You and I have been down this road before when you called me a liar and I demanded an apology and you apologized. Well, I am once again demanding an apology for calling me an “idiot.” Grow up young man and learn how to get along with people in a civil manner.
Forgive me for not remembering exactly the name of the welfare work requirement law signed by Clinton in 1996, 17 years ago. The correct title is, “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.” I was working at the community college in San Jose at the time this law was implemented and witnessed the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to fund the hiring of administrators, counselors, faculty and support staff, in addition to purchasing computers, copiers, office furniture and supplies. As did every community college across the US.
It was revised by CONGRESS in 2005 as part of the Deficit Reduction Act.
The Obama administration on July 12, 2011, without Congress’ approval, “announced its new policy.”
I am surprised you have forgotten the discussion that took place here on PS in 2011 when Obama by executive order changed the law which was specifically written at the time to prevent any changes without congressional approval.
The issue wasn’t that the changes were not needed. It was that once again Obama and this administration acted outside of their scope of power and authority, circumvented Congress and thumbing his nose at our Constitution.
I don’t know why you had trouble finding information about it, because it was all right there. Here’s a good write-up from Fact Check, which I’m sure you’ll approve of.
After I receive your apology, don’t expect a reply. Like Tina I’m done with you.
From Fact Check:
“Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform’?”
“The welfare overhaul was designed to help move unemployed Americans from welfare to work. The federal government strengthened work requirements on families receiving cash assistance, and for the first time imposed lifetime limits (generally up to five years). After two years on TANF, the parent in the household must be engaged in “work activities.”
Under the new policy, states can now seek a federal waiver from work-participation rules that, among other things, require welfare recipients to engage in one of 12 specific “work activities,” such as job training. But, in exchange, states must develop a plan that would provide a “more efficient or effective means to promote employment,” which may or may not include some or all of the same work activities. States also must submit an “evaluation plan” that includes “performance measures” that must be met — or the waiver could be revoked.
The law also generally requires states to document that 50 percent of all families receiving cash assistance are participating in such work activities. But work-participation rates peaked at 38 percent in 1999 and started to decline — prompting Congress to attempt to strengthen the rules when it reauthorized TANF as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
On Feb. 28, 2011, the president broadly directed his administration to work with state, local and tribal officials to find ways to provide more flexibility in complying with federal regulations. As a result, the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services solicited recommendations from state officials on how to improve its programs.
It’s understandable that some Republicans simply may not trust Sebelius and Sheldon. There is a lot of mistrust between the Democrats and Republicans on the issue of welfare — and the way the administration implemented the new policy has not helped.
However, like Haskins, the Utah governor questioned whether the administration has the authority to issue waivers. Hatch, the state’s senior senator, has asked the GAO to determine if the administration’s policy “qualifies as a regulation that is subject to review — and potential disapproval — under the Congressional Review Act.” The waiver issue is also likely to be addressed as part of the congressional reauthorization of TANF. (The current authorization of TANF expires Sept. 30.)”
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/does-obamas-plan-gut-welfare-reform/
TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03 (Guidance concerning waiver and expenditure authority under Section 1115)
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/resource/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203
Chris: “I don’t believe your request about Obamacare is fair, since this article has nothing to do with Obamacare.”
Okay. How about the economy and jobs generally? You were very hard on President Bush who spent too much I agree, but he still kept spending as a percentage of GDP in the same percentages as other presidents of both parties on average over eight years…which means our economy was in good (not excellent) shape. All of my efforts to point out the exaggerations and flagrant errors (lies) being waged against him were ridiculed…sometimes by others in my camp.
You have not made similar statements about Obama whose record on the economy is so much worse than Bush’s. Don’t hand me that line about the economic crash being so much worse. We recovered from the recession. All he had to do was enact polices that made people want to invest and create and he didn’t. the lousy economy cannot be blamed on the depth of the crash any more than Bush could have whined that his inherited recession, followed by 911 and it’s affects on Wall Street, followed by Katrina.
You continue to cling to old Democrat (progressive) lies about America’s history with respect to economic recovery, growth and job creation even though the last five years should be a wake up call that at least opens the door for reconsideration.
Worst of all, on a personal level, you actually believe that the evil motivations that radical progressives ascribe to conservatives generally are true and you let that color your perceptions about what we are saying. anyone can make a mistake and post something on a local blog that to them seems plausible. You particularly ignored the following which shows the intent of the Sessions report:
Peggy: “Oh Chris you are just so predictable. Somehow I just knew I would push that big red button that is planted right between your eyes.”
Yes, demeaning welfare recipients as lazy parasites tends to have that effect on me. You, inspired by a clearly dishonest piece of FOX News propaganda, attempted to characterize a single individual abusing food stamps as somehow the “face” of the program, which would mean he was representative of the majority of users. That FOX News special did not cite any statistics to prove that people like this man were common in the program. And yet you gobbled it all up and regurgitated it, simply because you wanted to believe it. That makes me furious, Peggy. It should make everyone furious. What you did was stupid and wrong, and hurtful to millions of Americans.
“You just couldn’t resist attacking me again because I don’t agree with your political point of view.”
No. I defended myself, my family and families like mine from your side’s vicious attacks on welfare recipients, which you yourself are engaging in.
“Chris: “you’re an idiot.”
Out of context. You said:
“The internet is just full of links about states “recruiting” applicants and the rising cost to us taxpayers and why our economy is not recovering when people given the choice find life easier to live off of hand-outs instead of having a job.”
I replied:
“If you honestly believe that is why our economy is not recovering, you’re an idiot.”
I stand by my statement. If you believe that the reason our economy is not recovering is because there are too many lazy people who don’t want jobs and would rather go on welfare, then you are an idiot. Your explanation makes no sense given the readily available facts. If your explanation were true, our unemployment rate wouldn’t be so high since people would just stop looking for work. Easier to just collect that welfare check, right? Wrong. Welfare doesn’t pay much. The majority of adult welfare recipients (not including the elderly or disabled) DO HAVE JOBS. Conservatives always ignore this in an effort to characterize “welfare recipients” and “workers” as opposites.
The fact is that people are struggling right now. They are looking for jobs–good paying jobs–but those are hard to find. The decline in wages has a lot to do with that, but despite your frequent invocations of Martin Luther King, Jr., you don’t think that’s a problem.
There are a lot of reasons the economy is a shambles right now, but your party is so busy blaming everything on Obama instead of determining the real causes that you can’t possibly address them.
“And you’re a bully! Any time someone presents an opinion or fact you don’t agree with you go into attack mode.”
What you posted from FOX News was neither fact nor opinion. It was a pack of deceptive lies posing as news. That loser is not the “face” of food stamps. To even suggest that is to completely ignore the facts of the program’s actual demographics. I linked to those facts for you, but you’re not interested in engaging with those, because they contradict your stereotypical view of food stamp recipients. You’re over there ranting about welfare queens and telling food stamp recipients to get a job (when most of us, including myself, already have one), and I’M the bully? Typical projection. Your side’s rhetoric against the poor and needy in this country is nothing short of bullying.
“Why do you do that Chris? Are you so insecure that you have to browbeat people to agree with everything you say?”
Again, I am defending my family and other families from YOUR bullshit. YOUR lies and misrepresentations. Of course you feel “bullied” and “attacked” whenever those are pointed out for what they are. You have no way to defend your accusations against food stamp recipients with the facts, so you resort to calling me a bully in order to discredit me. You get your news from FOX, for God’s sake, and you were actually *impressed* by a completely fact-free propaganda special called “The Great Food Stamp Binge.” You don’t care about facts.
“We all know why people bully others.”
To make themselves feel better. The same reason people decide to make a disliked group into a scapegoat for their own problems. Just like what you and FOX News are doing to the country’s poor and needy. Find one bad example and pretend they represent everyone in the group. How can you not see this for what it is?
“You are no longer on the playground where you get to pick up the ball and go home”
You’re right, I’m not an Ayn Rand character.
“You are now old enough to be in the adult world where everyone has the right to their opinion and to be treated with respect.”
You do not treat the nation’s poor and struggling with respect when you forward dishonest propaganda deriding them as a bunch of lazy moochers. That is profoundly disrespectful to your fellow men, the ones Jesus told you to be kindest to. That is why I responded in such harsh terms.
You have the right to your opinion, but not to your own facts.
“Well, I am once again demanding an apology for calling me an “idiot.””
Again, I used the word “if,” I didn’t call you that directly. And I think the position you advanced was clearly idiotic. But I will apologize if you apologize for posting the FOX News piece that inaccurately slammed food stamp recipients. As I have shown, the piece was completely removed from the reality of the majority of people on the program. You now have plenty of reason to understand that the special was bullshit. If you continue to defend it and promote it, you are being willfully self-deceptive.
“Forgive me for not remembering exactly the name of the welfare work requirement law signed by Clinton in 1996, 17 years ago. The correct title is, “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996…I don’t know why you had trouble finding information about it, because it was all right there.”
Uh, maybe I had trouble finding information about it because you called it by the wrong name, and none of the details you mentioned about it were remotely true?
“Here’s a good write-up from Fact Check, which I’m sure you’ll approve of.”
That Fact Check article completely contradicts your initial claim!
You said, “Obama regrettably undid the law in his stimulus plan.”
According to Fact Check, Obama did not “undo” the law.
And the changes to the law also had nothing to do with the stimulus plan.
Are you now admitting that your initial claim was completely false?
Chris: “Are you now admitting that your initial claim was completely false?”
No, I’m standing by what I submitted. Obama did change the welfare work reform law of 1996 and amended in 2005 without going through Congress in 2011.
I also stand in agreement with the documentary and Charles Murray’s assessment of how prolonged welfare and food stamp use undermines our nations future.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=food+stamp+fox&view=detail&mid=F6C80438DF3EE2D8F3A7F6C80438DF3EE2D8F3A7&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR
Here is the full documentary.
Hear Florida Pastor Ramirez express his opinions and concerns with government aide, at the 13:00 mark. And North Carolina residents “Mountain Pride,” against giving awards for getting people ON food stamps instead of off, at the 21:11 mark.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3ff_1376291824
So Chris, I guess in your eyes I’m an “idiot” as you are to me “if” you continue to refuse to see the truth because you don’t agree with the messengers.
Chris: “demeaning welfare recipients as lazy parasites tends to have that effect on me.”
A clear indication that you are incapable of objectivity on this subject.
The PROGRAM, especially as administered by this administration is what is being criticized. The philosophy behind encouraging dependency is what is being questioned. The absolute lack of concern for those who do take advantage, putting downward pressure on those truly in need and unwarranted demand on every tax payer is being demeaned! Your party of choice is being questioned and marked as a failure for its so-called “war on poverty”.
Grow up!
Peggy: “No, I’m standing by what I submitted. Obama did change the welfare work reform law of 1996 and amended in 2005 without going through Congress in 2011.”
Funny, that’s not even CLOSE to what you said the first time.
You said: “Obama regrettably undid the law in his stimulus plan.”
“Undid” is not the same as “change,” and “in 2011” is not the same as “in his stimulus plan.”
Did you really think I couldn’t go back and check what you originally said? Why do you constantly try to change your own argument, as if people can’t just go back and see what you wrote in black and white? Why can’t you just admit you were wrong the first time?
Tina: “The PROGRAM, especially as administered by this administration is what is being criticized.”
So, that surfer dude who doesn’t work and uses food stamps to treat himself runs the program, now, does he?
Tina, your defense doesn’t make any sense. If it were the program that were being criticized, and not the people using the program, then there would be no point in trying to inaccurately paint that loser as the “face” of food stamps. Nor would they title the broadcast “The Great Food Stamp Binge,” which implies that recipients are “bingeing” on food stamps. These are clear attacks on the recipients of food stamps, designed to stereotype them. Any “objective” observer could see that; it is you who lacks objectivity. You have a vested interest in defending FOX News and advancing the anti-food stamp narrative. If that means denying that food stamp recipients are being attacked even when they clearly are, well, that’s a turd you’re more than willing to polish.
Tina: “Your party of choice is being questioned and marked as a failure for its so-called “war on poverty”.”
That reminds me, you didn’t address my earlier point that the graph you posted uses the wrong date for the start of the war on poverty. If you acknowledge that the war on poverty began in 1964, not 1968 as the author erroneously stated, then it looks like the war on poverty was a clear success. Poverty since the war on poverty began has never been as high as it was in 1964. So why do you still call it a “failure?”
We’ve discussed it before Chris. You aren’t really interested…that you bother to ask is highly suspicious!
Those seeking information and alternative ways to approach the problem might be interested in a 2012 report from CATO.
It is a war that liberals never intended to win, instead the plan was to construct a permanent dependency population that would be forever grateful and forever vote for those politicians that advocate for more poverty spending…Democrats have done just that for nearly fifty years while claiming alternatives mean that Republicans want to starve people.
Darkness of intent couldn’t stop some people from climbing out of the hell hole of welfare dependency but it has kept generations of Americans trapped in poverty.
That is failure.
It is a shame that we cannot even discuss alternatives simply because so many liberal progressives have placed their solution to poverty in a gold box…the war on poverty is sacred and cannot be touched!
As Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant: It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Poverty programs breed poverty. And so it continues…
Wow, a Democrat I agree with.
Longtime Democrat Wants to Bring TheBlaze TV to Vermont – Here’s Why:
Sandy Baird is a lawyer, professor, and a longtime Democrat. She also happens to think that Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze TV should be brought to Burlington, Vt.
“I support the efforts to have TheBlaze TV come to Burlington, because I support free speech and believe we should have access to as many political perspectives as possible,” she said, according to a Vermont paper.
“I think that my students — as well as all Americans — need to see all those views, and frankly, they don’t on [the] mainstream media,” she said. “They either watch MSNBC, which is a channel for the Democrats, or they watch Fox, which is a vehicle for the Republicans. And while that’s fine, we need a lot more views. And frankly, a lot more information. And that’s why I totally support free speech.”
“The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech…and that’s what should be upheld,” she said. “No matter what we think of that person’s opinion…Without that kind of free speech, we are no longer a free country.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/14/longtime-democrat-wants-to-bring-theblaze-tv-to-vermont-why/