Welfare now 21% of Federal Budget

[Pythagorean]

I think I figured out the problem. We've extended human lifetime. And.. baby boomers.

Healthcare: 916

Major Hitters for Healthcare:

Medical Service for Seniors - 530
Grants to States for Medicaid - 282

Welfare: 422

Major Hitters for Welfare:

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - 76
Unemployment - 77
Supplemental Security Income Program - 54
Payment Where Earned Income Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax - 52
Housing - 57

 

[russ_watters]

Welfare, as it's normally defined (the welfare check), refers to the federal program called TANF or "Temporary Assistance to Needy Families."...

Welfare, as been re-defined here, is more about providing general welfare to the public. And the entire federal budget should be included in such a definition.

So my thought: Republicans are manufacturing a talking point to use in elections. It's untrue, but truth doesn't really matter.

Does anyone ever check definitions? It was just yesterday that I suggested it might be a good idea:

3. financial or other assistance to an individual or family from a city, state, or national government: Thousands of jobless people in this city would starve if it weren't for welfare.
4. ( initial capital letter ) Informal . a governmental agency that provides funds and aid to people in need, especially those unable to work.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/welfare

Welfare is the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens. In most developed countries, welfare is largely provided by the government, in addition to charities, informal social groups, religious groups, and inter-governmental organizations. In the end, this term replaces "charity" as it was known for thousands of years, being the voluntary act of providing for those who temporarily or permanently could not.

[and for the US:]
In a 2011 op-ed in Forbes, Peter Ferrara stated that, "The best estimate of the cost of the 185 federal means tested Welfare programs for 2010 for the federal government alone is nearly $700 billion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare

The US program labeled "welfare" is not the only program that fits the definition and that's not a conservative conspiracy to broaden the definition. That's shoe's generally on the other foot around here.

Programs like food stamps exist because it is better to earmark the money for specific purposes related to standard of living, rather than just handing the poor a big bag of cash. The so titled "Welfare" program is just left-over, miscellaneous bag of cash we hand the poor that isn't earmarked for specific standard of living use.

 

[russ_watters]

I think I figured out the problem. We've extended human lifetime.

That's a problem? I thought it was a goal and a good thing?

Why were these programs set up like pyramid schemes that relied on a broad base of payers to fund those getting the money out if the goal has always been to extend lifespans and we'd been succeeding? Didn't our benevolent President FDR know this when he handed us this ticking time bomb?

 

[Pythagorean]

That's a problem? I thought it was a goal and a good thing?

Why were these programs set up like pyramid schemes that relied on a broad base of payers to fund those getting the money out if the goal has always been to extend lifespans and we'd been succeeding? Didn't our benevolent President FDR know this when he handed us this ticking time bomb?

Why do you call FDR benevolent?

The baby boom had just started when FDR died. There's actually a hump in the birth rate from 1940 to 1965, it wasn't business as usual; the rate of increase increased. And the rate of increase has since decreased dramatically. And now we're currently seeing the baby boomers get into retirement and programs like... Medical Service for Seniors.

But I wasn't seriously proposing reducing human life.

 

[russ_watters]

The crack about FDR was sarcasm. FDR is viewed as one of our best Presidents by liberals and one of our worst by conservatives. I'm a conservative.

The Baby Boom is just a diversion. It doesn't change the fact that these programs, as designed, had a trajectory toward insolvency. The Baby Boom just changes the slope of the trajectory a little. Though I would debate that it hurt: if anything, in a wider view, the Baby Boom helped, since the "boom" is inverted. The Baby Boom was preceded by a steep drop in births.

Anyway, I am not a person who would be OK with the program (or any program) failing as long as I'm already dead when it happens, and it seems to me that that's a lot of the motivation for fighting against changes in these programs. But even the 'it won't be bankrupt until at least 2035 and even then there will still be some money to pay' argument is flawed, to me. In my view, the programs failed decades ago and people just haven't accepted it yet. Why?

Because as a sort of forced-savings retirement program, your money should be growing*. You should be getting back a lot more money than you put in. It used to be that way, but it isn't anymore. Most people won't be getting back what they paid in and that is a net loss versus a real retirement plan and old-age healthcare savings fund. Our failure to deal with this problem is damaging our retiree standard of living.

*Calculations I've done on my own retirement show that assuming 3% annual pay raises and 5% investment growth (both after inflation), after 30 years of investing you should have roughly 3x as much money as you've invested. If after you retire the money grows at 3% (due to more cautious investing) and you live another 25 years, it should grow another 1x over what you put in. So overall, a relatively conservative strategy should net you 4x what you paid in. Instead, I'll be getting less than 1x. Given the 15% witholding for SS and Medicare (including the employer portion) and projecting over a reasonably successfull engineer's career, these poorly conceived programs are going to drain millions of dollars from my retirement.

This is not greed talking. These millions of dollars that I could have had are not going to help the needy. They are being wasted on propping up flawed programs. If the programs had been designed better, we would all be getting more back.

 

[Oltz]

Well said Russ I concur.

 

[ParticleGrl]

and 5% investment growth (both after inflation)

Are you really sure you are going to find 5% after-inflation investment growth? Due to my youth, I largely missed the 90s boom, and over the last decade I'm averaging a bit over 3% BEFORE inflation and I'm invested in broad index funds, so I'm pretty sure I'm matching the market. I hope we come roaring back, but most estimates are another decade to full employment, which means further low growth.

What happens if the timing of your retirement and a massive financial crash happen to coincide? I have family members who were counting on their 401ks and on downsizing their home in retirement in order to live comfortably. Unfortunately, the crash was badly timed for them and they ended up seeing most of their nest egg wiped out, and the low interest rates now mean they've had to dip into their savings faster than they thought. They now rely at least partially on their social security and are glad they have it.

 

[mheslep]

...

The Baby Boom is just a diversion. It doesn't change the fact that these programs, as designed, had a trajectory toward insolvency. The Baby Boom just changes the slope of the trajectory a little. Though I would debate that it hurt: if anything, in a wider view, the Baby Boom helped, since the "boom" is inverted. ...

Exactly. These kind of increases in benefits per head

would have crashed the system long ago without the large simultaneous increase in tax paying labor force brought about the baby boom.

 

[mheslep]

The general rule on investment, as I've understood it, is that as retirement approaches one moves into bonds or similarly stable securities, so that a ten or 15 year reversal in otherwise strong growth stocks is avoided. Staying in stocks is a decision to gamble on postponing retirement should the downturn take place.

 

[Pythagorean]

The crack about FDR was sarcasm. FDR is viewed as one of our best Presidents by liberals and one of our worst by conservatives. I'm a conservative.

The Baby Boom is just a diversion. It doesn't change the fact that these programs, as designed, had a trajectory toward insolvency. The Baby Boom just changes the slope of the trajectory a little. Though I would debate that it hurt: if anything, in a wider view, the Baby Boom helped, since the "boom" is inverted. The Baby Boom was preceded by a steep drop in births.

Anyway, I am not a person who would be OK with the program (or any program) failing as long as I'm already dead when it happens, and it seems to me that that's a lot of the motivation for fighting against changes in these programs. But even the 'it won't be bankrupt until at least 2035 and even then there will still be some money to pay' argument is flawed, to me. In my view, the programs failed decades ago and people just haven't accepted it yet. Why?

Because as a sort of forced-savings retirement program, your money should be growing*. You should be getting back a lot more money than you put in. It used to be that way, but it isn't anymore. Most people won't be getting back what they paid in and that is a net loss versus a real retirement plan and old-age healthcare savings fund. Our failure to deal with this problem is damaging our retiree standard of living.

*Calculations I've done on my own retirement show that assuming 3% annual pay raises and 5% investment growth (both after inflation), after 30 years of investing you should have roughly 3x as much money as you've invested. If after you retire the money grows at 3% (due to more cautious investing) and you live another 25 years, it should grow another 1x over what you put in. So overall, a relatively conservative strategy should net you 4x what you paid in. Instead, I'll be getting less than 1x. Given the 15% witholding for SS and Medicare (including the employer portion) and projecting over a reasonably successfull engineer's career, these poorly conceived programs are going to drain millions of dollars from my retirement.

This is not greed talking. These millions of dollars that I could have had are not going to help the needy. They are being wasted on propping up flawed programs. If the programs had been designed better, we would all be getting more back.

conservative/liberal/sarcasm... these things don't contribute much to the discussion.

Social factors are amongst some of the more chaotic, especially in economic systems. I don't see how you can separate two idealized trajectories (new deal vs. baby-boomers) in a nonlinear system, it's not like superposition and zero-sum applies. There is damping/sources, amplification, feedback, etc. Certainly a population injection can cause breakdowns and crises where saturation occurs. If everything were linear, you could predict out to infinity.

I'm not arguing that FDR did "the right thing", but I especially doubt anyone on the ground in 2012 can appreciate all the intersecting factors presented to the administration at the time. Anyway, since we can't go back in time, complaining about the past isn't really part of the solution.

So we know that the biggest single spending item in welfare is medical services for old people. Cutting all spending on food stamps would be a meager contribution compared to cutting senior medical spending in half (for instance, not for argument).

The general rule on investment, as I've understood it, is that as retirement approaches one moves into bonds or similarly stable securities, so that a ten or 15 year reversal in otherwise strong growth stocks is avoided. Staying in stocks is a decision to gamble on postponing retirement should the downturn take place.

That's what my financial adviser says. Take more risks when you are younger. The more time you throw the die, the better your chance of winning. You have time to get over the losses and throw the die again when you're young. As long as you keep your risks to a manageable level, it generally pays off.

 

[Pythagorean]

Exactly. These kind of increases in benefits per head

would have crashed the system long ago without the large simultaneous increase in tax paying labor force brought about the baby boom.

How do we know the raising pensions aren't a result of the population boom requiring more services? What sectors of government made up the pensions? We need another pie chart.

 

[SixNein]

Does anyone ever check definitions? It was just yesterday that I suggested it might be a good idea:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/welfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare

The US program labeled "welfare" is not the only program that fits the definition and that's not a conservative conspiracy to broaden the definition. That's shoe's generally on the other foot around here.

Programs like food stamps exist because it is better to earmark the money for specific purposes related to standard of living, rather than just handing the poor a big bag of cash. The so titled "Welfare" program is just left-over, miscellaneous bag of cash we hand the poor that isn't earmarked for specific standard of living use.

There is a difference between general welfare and welfare the program.

The talking point conservatives are shooting for is confusing one with the other. So they lumped a great deal of different things together and called them "welfare."

For example, the child tax credit can be fully claimed for up 110,000 dollar income. Median household income is much less then 110,000 dollars.

According to republicans, this is "welfare."

 

[russ_watters]

Are you really sure you are going to find 5% after-inflation investment growth? Due to my youth, I largely missed the 90s boom, and over the last decade I'm averaging a bit over 3% BEFORE inflation and I'm invested in broad index funds, so I'm pretty sure I'm matching the market.

You just missed a boom and therefore have invested in a period when growth is below average. But the lifetime average of the stock market is roughly 8% after inflation, so I wouldn't expect that trend to continue. Planning for 5% is conservative.

 

[russ_watters]

conservative/liberal/sarcasm... these things don't contribute much to the discussion.

Agreed, but I didn't find it to be worth pointing that out when you did it.

Social factors are amongst some of the more chaotic, especially in economic systems. I don't see how you can separate two idealized trajectories (new deal vs. baby-boomers) in a nonlinear system, it's not like superposition and zero-sum applies.

Again, none of that is relevant. Regardless of the exact shape of the trajectory, the point is the trajectory was always downward.

I'm not arguing that FDR did "the right thing", but I especially doubt anyone on the ground in 2012 can appreciate all the intersecting factors presented to the administration at the time. Anyway, since we can't go back in time, complaining about the past isn't really part of the solution.

No, but acknowledging what the flaws are is critical for correcting them. But unfortunately, few people acknowledge the worst flaw -- the one that means the programs have already failed. That they are already causing financial hardship.

 

[russ_watters]

There is a difference between general welfare and welfare the program.

Programs, yes. The difference is on which side of the poverty line the programs fall.

The talking point conservatives are shooting for is confusing one with the other. So they lumped a great deal of different things together and called them "welfare."

For example, the child tax credit can be fully claimed for up 110,000 dollar income. Median household income is much less then 110,000 dollars.

According to republicans, this is "welfare."

Please provide a source for the claim in your last sentence.

And regardless of that, you still have the shoe on the wrong foot here. You're claiming that conservatives abuse the definition of "welfare", when all we know for sure that at least one liberal does: you did. But even if you can show that some conservative somewhere abused the definition, that person isn't posting in this thread, so you're castigating no one. More to the point, the existence of that person abusing the definition in one direction still wouldn't make it ok for you to abuse it in the other.

At this point, I would appreciate it if you would explicitly acknowledge your error and what the definition actually says/applies instead of continuing to weasel around it. I'm referring to this:

Welfare, as it's normally defined (the welfare check), refers to the federal program called TANF or "Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.". And spending on it has been decreasing for over a decade. We currently spend about 16.5 billion on it per year.

Welfare, as been re-defined here, is more about providing general welfare to the public. And the entire federal budget should be included in such a definition.

All of that is wrong or at least mis-applied. The links I posted and the links others posted are correct: "Welfare programs" are more than just "the Welfare program".

 

[mheslep]

How do we know the raising pensions aren't a result of the population boom requiring more services? What sectors of government made up the pensions? We need another pie chart.

The chart is plotted per capita, in constant dollars.

The fraction of the overall population on federal pension has also increased dramatically. In 1950 2% drew SS benefits, and in 2008 16%.

The pension figure from the chart is $820B in 2012, spread over 314 million people. The pension makeup is almost all social security, $778B/yr, with the balance going to federal employee ( currently http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/07/~/media/Images/Reports/2010/CDA1005/cda1005_chart2_750px.ashx) retirement/disability. Interestingly, next year's 2013 federal pension total is estimated to be $58B more, $878B, 2014 $925B, ...

 

[Pythagorean]

The chart is plotted per capita, in constant dollars.

The fraction of the overall population on federal pension has also increased dramatically. In 1950 2% drew SS benefits, and in 2008 16%.

With a mention of the All you've demonstrated is that it's not a linear relationship. But you might consider that social-program demand is a function of population density, bound by a fixed area and an increasing population and that the functional relationship is further complicated when extended spatially across many cities with different densities (but not isolated in terms of population costs).

So what would the average spending per population be in a real world scenario? Probably not a linear function. The nonlinear function (a u-shape) has been shown to be related to population density.

Anecdotally, you may hear parents remark that 2 children are 10 times the work of 1.

article:
http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/review2.htm
peer-reviewed literature:
http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=372175

The pension figure from the chart is $820B in 2012, spread over 314 million people. The pension makeup is almost all social security, $778B/yr, with the balance going to federal employee ( currently http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/07/~/media/Images/Reports/2010/CDA1005/cda1005_chart2_750px.ashx) retirement/disability. Interestingly, next year's 2013 federal pension total is estimated to be $58B more, $878B, 2014 $925B, ...

and... if you drilled a little deeper, 635 of that 778 is:

"Federal Old-age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund"

Again... baby boomers! (and the disabled) ... in federal government. Now I'd like to see a pie chart of that demographic. What kind of people make up this Federal Old-age cost?

 

[mheslep]

...

and... if you drilled a little deeper, 635 of that 778 is:

"Federal Old-age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund"

?
That is the formal name given to the instrument that pays out traditional social security retirement checks.

...What kind of people make up this Federal Old-age cost?

? People over 67 There are exceptions, any age spouse of deceased, etc.

 

[Pythagorean]

No, but acknowledging what the flaws are is critical for correcting them. But unfortunately, few people acknowledge the worst flaw -- the one that means the programs have already failed. That they are already causing financial hardship.

The financial sector is the bridge that failed, not the social programs. The social programs, of course, are weight on the bridge that lowered its failure tolerance, but it was no trivial failure on the bridge's part. And I'm not even saying the weight on the bridge is justified by their mutual contribution to failure, I'm just trying to broaden the horizon here.

Again, none of that is relevant. Regardless of the exact shape of the trajectory, the point is the trajectory was always downward.

It's certainly relevant. Downward can be a manageable slope, downward can be exponential decay, or downward can be a trough at the beginning of a peak. Unfortunately, everyone has linear relationships built into their mind and don't realize how quickly things can get unintuitive.

I'm not sure when you speak of the pyramid, what you mean. In case you mean the growth rate pyramid. It really is only a pyramid for developing countries. Developed countries (like the us) have the "constrictive pryamid" shape. And we don't really know what happens next, yet (developed countries haven't been around long enough). There's also some evidence suggesting that having a youth bulge (an excess of the population is in their hormonal stages) increases creates more of a burden on the state from more incidences of unrest and

Heinsohn, Gunnar (2003). Söhne und Weltmacht : Terror I am Aufstieg und Fall der Nationen. Zürich: (Terror in the rise and fall of nations).

and

http://www.cfr.org/society-and-culture/effects-youth-bulge-civil-conflicts/p13093

So different population distributions can have different costs associated with them, and not in any simple, straightforward kind of way.

 

[Pythagorean]

?
That is the formal name given to the instrument that pays out traditional social security retirement checks.

? People over 67 There are exceptions, any age spouse of deceased, etc.

I mean the social security checks that are going to federal employees and survivors of federal employees. What kind of jobs were the federal employees doing before they retired/passed? What programs were they part of?

 

[JonDE]

You just missed a boom and therefore have invested in a period when growth is below average. But the lifetime average of the stock market is roughly 8% after inflation, so I wouldn't expect that trend to continue. Planning for 5% is conservative.

I'm not completely disagreeing with you, because I would like to see a form of privatizing SS, but your numbers are misleading.

First the oft quoted 8% return is wrong for two reasons. First, they are taking the growth and decline rates and averaging them to get their average, but to get a real average you have to use compound average growth. There is a fun little calculator here.
http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm
You won't be able to get the inflation adjusted CAGR above 8% unless you are using obviously biased dates, the highest I was able to get it without being overly biased was 1900-2000 which had a return rate of 7.09%.

Second, there is a big difference in how an investor operates and how the S&P operates. Example, if a company goes under the S&P drops that company and replaces it, the only loss to the S&P is the difference in the value. While for an investor the difference is a 100% loss on the companies stock.

Lastly, only a fool would be 100% invested in stocks 100% of the time. Almost all retirement plans have bonds in them which grow at a lower rate.

I don't have any real figures, but I expect 5% after inflation to actually be quite average to strong, not a conservative guess.

 

[chemisttree]

I mean the social security checks that are going to federal employees and survivors of federal employees. What kind of jobs were the federal employees doing before they retired/passed? What programs were they part of?

What possible relevance does this have? It doesn't matter in what capacity they were once employed. These are folks on the receiving end of federal benefits they're entitled to which is why it's referred to as an entitlement program.

 

[Pythagorean]

To see what aspects of the budget they're associated with. Military, congress, social programs? This could help to understand where the bloat is.

 

[SixNein]

Programs, yes. The difference is on which side of the poverty line the programs fall. Please provide a source for the claim in your last sentence.

What on median income?
http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf

Or the link that was provided by op listing the "programs"?

And regardless of that, you still have the shoe on the wrong foot here. You're claiming that conservatives abuse the definition of "welfare", when all we know for sure that at least one liberal does: you did. But even if you can show that some conservative somewhere abused the definition, that person isn't posting in this thread, so you're castigating no one. More to the point, the existence of that person abusing the definition in one direction still wouldn't make it ok for you to abuse it in the other.

At this point, I would appreciate it if you would explicitly acknowledge your error and what the definition actually says/applies instead of continuing to weasel around it. I'm referring to this: All of that is wrong or at least mis-applied. The links I posted and the links others posted are correct: "Welfare programs" are more than just "the Welfare program".

I stand by my argument that this isn't welfare. Even by your own definitions, in which you quoted, we aren't talking about welfare. Tax breaks are not government transfers or government spending. At best, this is promotion of general welfare and should include the whole budget.

You're claiming that conservatives abuse the definition of "welfare"

I claimed that this particular talking point was an abuse of the definition of welfare. The whole thing has elections written all over it.

 

[D H]

So my thought: Republicans are manufacturing a talking point to use in elections. It's untrue, but truth doesn't really matter.

No, it's not "untrue". If anything, the deception lies in that pie chart presented in post #32 that shows "Welfare" as only 11% of the budget. That slice should have been designated "Miscellaneous welfare". It does not include everything that almost everyone would agree deems to be called "welfare". That "Welfare" slice of the pie is just budget function 600 less subfunction 602 (federal employee retirement and disability).

For example, the "Health care" wedge of this pie chart includes the 349.1 billion dollars that fall under budget subfunction 551. The largest component of subfunction 551 is the 282.8 billion granted to states for Medicaid. That's welfare. Add that 282.8 billion to the 422.3 billion dollars that forms the "Welfare" slice of the pie and you're at 18.5% of the federal budget, which is a lot closer to the Republican's 21% than the pie chart's 11%. Some of what's categorized in that pie chart as "Education" is also "welfare". Add these in, and various other things spritzed around in various budget subfunctions, and you get the Republican's 21%.

Note: Not all of subfunction 551 is "welfare". The government's share of health insurance for retired military, retired civil servants, and retired postal workers are also in subfunction 551.

 

[russ_watters]

The financial sector is the bridge that failed, not the social programs.

Social Security was supposed to provide a safe way to invest for retirement, providing a return on investment of several times the principle. Today, it is providing zero return on investment. The result is that people retiring today will get vastly less money back vs their investment than people did 40 years ago. That's a failure, in my book.

Or to put it another way: if you invest $500,000 toward your retirement and plan on having $2,000,000 to retire with due to growth, but only get $500,000, that's a big miss and will cause a huge loss of standard of living.

Now for SS, it is kinda the other way around though: When SS was started, the tax rate was 2%. Now it is 12%, not including the recent temporary cut. So that's a change of 6x. That is enough to explain all of the change in pay-in to pay-out ratio. So actually it is actually in our working-age years we are being screwed, not in retirement.

40 years ago, people would pay $500,000 for $2,000,000 in retirement savings, but today we are paying $2,000,000. Which reduces our working age standard of living.

[note: numbers are estimated for illustration.]

The social programs, of course, are weight on the bridge that lowered its failure tolerance...

No, one really has nothing to do with the other.

It's certainly relevant. Downward can be a manageable slope, downward can be exponential decay, or downward can be a trough at the beginning of a peak.

You're not getting what we're talking about here: Downward means every person who retires does worse than the person who retired before him/her. There's nothing "manageable" about that unless we don't care about that continuously worsening deal. (slight exaggeration for illustrative purposes: the slope is of course not completely smooth and people live different lengths of time.)

I'm not sure when you speak of the pyramid, what you mean.

I speak of it as in pyramid scheme. A system where a large base of people paying in pay the people at the top of the pyramid. With SS/Medicare, the increasing longevity of the population and lowering population rate increase are moving the threshold between pay-in and pay-out downward and narrowing the base, respectively.

 

[russ_watters]

What on median income?
http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf

Or the link that was provided by op listing the "programs"?

I won't parse those. Please cite them specifically. The simplest way would be to name a program on the list linked in the OP that doesn't fit the definition, then acknowledge that most do and therefore you were wrong to say there is only one welfare program.

You have two claims to prove now (three if we also continue with who is manufacturing a talking point) and I won't allow you to move the goalposts by replacing the first with the second. Proving the second requires one program to be mislabeled (and your choice of sources says it is the government being inconsistent, not Republicans). Proving the first requires all but one of them to be mislabeled.

I stand by my argument that this isn't welfare. Even by your own definitions, in which you quoted, we aren't talking about welfare. Tax breaks are not government transfers or government spending.

What tax breaks are you referring to? What is "this"?

I claimed that this particular talking point was an abuse of the definition of welfare.

Two different claims, but yes.

The whole thing has elections written all over it.

Agreed!

While we're talking about abuse of definitions, consider this common one:

Corporate welfare is a sociological concept that analogizes corporate subsidies to welfare payments for the poor. The term is often used derogatorily to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations, and implies that corporations are much less needy of such treatment than the poor. In practice, the term is often used virtually interchangeably with crony capitalism...

Ralph Nader, an American critic of corporate welfare, is often credited with coining the term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

That is the most common abuse of the term "welfare" that I'm aware of. So this issue is mostly (almost exclusively? - I still have yet to see an example from the other side) a liberal attempt at definition-mangling.

 

[russ_watters]

No, it's not "untrue". If anything, the deception lies in that pie chart presented in post #32 that shows "Welfare" as only 11% of the budget. That slice should have been designated "Miscellaneous welfare". It does not include everything that almost everyone would agree deems to be called "welfare". That "Welfare" slice of the pie is just budget function 600 less subfunction 602 (federal employee retirement and disability).

I would tend to agree. The fact that all of the labels are capitalized confuses things by making it less clear that that is just that one program and not all forms of welfare.

 

[aquitaine]

Personally I'm in favor of the Purple Social Security Plan and the Purple Health Plan.

To me it is unconscionable to just let people die because they aren't successful, but the current system is in dire need of reform.

 

[SixNein]

No, it's not "untrue". If anything, the deception lies in that pie chart presented in post #32 that shows "Welfare" as only 11% of the budget. That slice should have been designated "Miscellaneous welfare". It does not include everything that almost everyone would agree deems to be called "welfare". That "Welfare" slice of the pie is just budget function 600 less subfunction 602 (federal employee retirement and disability).

For example, the "Health care" wedge of this pie chart includes the 349.1 billion dollars that fall under budget subfunction 551. The largest component of subfunction 551 is the 282.8 billion granted to states for Medicaid. That's welfare. Add that 282.8 billion to the 422.3 billion dollars that forms the "Welfare" slice of the pie and you're at 18.5% of the federal budget, which is a lot closer to the Republican's 21% than the pie chart's 11%. Some of what's categorized in that pie chart as "Education" is also "welfare". Add these in, and various other things spritzed around in various budget subfunctions, and you get the Republican's 21%.

Note: Not all of subfunction 551 is "welfare". The government's share of health insurance for retired military, retired civil servants, and retired postal workers are also in subfunction 551.

I would accept that medicate is welfare. But if your going to include medicate, why not include medicare?

In addition as you pointed out, they include programs that are, imo, more about the promotion of social mobility (education) than safety nets. But ok let's call it welfare. So why not include any federal spending that targets helping new small businesses like the Business Development Program?

The 8(a) Program is an essential instrument for helping socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs gain access to the economic mainstream of American society. The programs helps thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to gain a foothold in government contracting.

http://www.sba.gov/content/8a-business-development-0

Student loans-> Small Business loans?

"Community Service Employment for Older Americans" (in op link) is welfare but "http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-development-centers-sbdcs" is not?

Quite frankly, they picked out things unpopular with their base, and they left out things that are popular with their base. So how are they not abusing welfare here?

 

[russ_watters]

I would accept that medicate is welfare.

Then do you acknowledge that this was wrong?:

Welfare, as it's normally defined (the welfare check), refers to the federal program called TANF or "Temporary Assistance to Needy Families."

But if your going to include medicate, why not include medicare?

Because Medicaid is for poor people and Medicare isn't.

 

[D H]

Welfare, as it's normally defined (the welfare check), refers to the federal program called TANF or "Temporary Assistance to Needy Families."

Is that your one and only program that you think qualifies as welfare?

If it isn't, please whittle this list of 83 programs down to the ones that you would say do qualify as welfare.

1. Family Planning
2. Consolidated Health Centers
3. Transitional Cash and Medical Services for Refugees
4. State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
5. Voluntary Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit-Low-Income Subsidy
6. Medicaid
7. Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program
8. Breast/Cervical Cancer Early Detection
9. Maternal and Child Health Block Grant
10. Indian Health Service
11. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (cash aid)
12. Supplemental Security Income
13. Additional Child Tax Credit
14. Earned Income Tax Credit (refundable component)
15. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
16. School Breakfast Program (free/reduced price components)
17. National School Lunch Program (free/reduced price components)
18. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
19. Child and Adult Care Food Program (lower income components)
20. Summer Food Service Program
21. Commodity Supplemental
22. Food Program Nutrition Assistance for Puerto Rico
23. The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)
24. Nutrition Program for the Elderly
25. Indian Education
26. Adult Basic Education Grants to States
27. Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant
28. Education for the Disadvantaged- Grants to Local Educational Agencies (Title I-A)
29. Title I Migrant Education Program
30. Higher Education-Institutional Aid and Developing Institutions
31. Federal Work-Study
32. Federal TRIO Programs
33. Federal Pell Grants
34. Education for Homeless Children and Youth
35. 21st Century Community Learning Centers
36. Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR- UP)
37. Reading First and Early Reading First
38. Rural Education Achievement Program
39. Mathematics and Science Partnerships
40. Improving Teacher Quality State Grants
41. Academic Competitiveness and Smart Grant Program
42. Single-Family Rural Housing Loans
43. Rural Rental Assistance Program
44. Water and Waste Disposal for Rural Communities
45. Public Works and Economic Development
46. Supportive Housing for the Elderly
47. Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities
48. Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance
49. Community Development Block Grants
50. Homeless Assistance Grants
51. Home Investment Partnerships Program (HOME)
52. Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
53. Public Housing
54. Indian Housing Block Grants
55. Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers
56. Neighborhood Stabilization Program-1
57. Grants to States for Low-Income Housing in Lieu of Low-Income Housing Credit Allocations
58. Tax Credit Assistance Program
59. Indian Human Services
60. Older Americans Act Grants for Supportive Services and Senior Centers
61. Older Americans Act Family Caregiver Program
62. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (social services)
63. Child Support Enforcement
64. Community Services Block Grant
65. Child Care and Development Fund
66. Head Start HHS
67. Developmental Disabilities Support and Advocacy Grants
68. Foster Care
69. Adoption Assistance
70. Social Services Block Grant
71. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program
72. Emergency Food and Shelter Program
73. Legal Services Corporation
74. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (employment and training component)
75. Community Service Employment for Older Americans
76. Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult Activities
77. Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Activities
78. Social Services and Targeted Assistance for Refugees
79. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (employment and training)
80. Foster Grandparents
81. Job Corps
82. Weatherization Assistance Program
83. Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)

This is the list of programs that led to that 21% figure. Some are perhaps dubious as "welfare". So come up with your own list.

Please be reasonable. It had better not be TANF and TANF only. That's not a reasonable definition of "welfare".

 

[StevieTNZ]

Sounds like you guys are attacking each other.

 

[SixNein]

Then do you acknowledge that this was wrong?: Because Medicaid is for poor people and Medicare isn't.

No, I was just accepting the definition as being used for the sake of argument, and I was pointing out that republicans are excluding programs that target old, rich, veterans, and business. I'm curious as to why they should be excluded. In my opinion, the list only includes things republicans don't like while excluding things they do like or need for votes.

And yes, people traditionally use welfare in politics to refer to TANF. IE: Welfare rolls, welfare queens, welfare reform, or just plain old welfare.

Mitt Romney, for example, has been investing quite a bit on running attack ads on "welfare" (TANF).
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-215_162-57499358/the-real-strategy-behind-romneys-lying-welfare-ads/

Of course, those attack ads were wildly false. But quite frankly, I'm starting to agree with the Romney team that facts simply don't matter. Half of eligible Americans don't vote, and so whatever candidate can rally its partisan base wins.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course medicare is for poor people.

In 1959, for example, 35.2 percent of Americans over 65 were living below the poverty line, compared with 17 percent of those under 65. Today, about 10 percent of seniors are living in poverty. Before Medicare was enacted, the elderly paid 53 percent of the cost of their health care. That share dropped to 29 percent in 1975 and to 18 percent in 1997. The elderly s health costs consumed 24 percent of the average Social Security check shortly before Medicare; by 1975, that share dropped to 17 percent (Gornick, 1976).

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statist...eports/TheChartSeries/Downloads/35chartbk.pdf

Though to be fair...

Elderly poverty in the U.S. decreased dramatically during the twentieth century. Between 1960 and 1995, the official poverty rate of those aged 65 and above fell from 35 percent to 10 percent, and research has documented similarly steep declines dating back to at least 1939. While poverty was once far more prevalent among the elderly than among other age groups, today's elderly have a poverty rate similar to that of working-age adults and much lower than that of children.

Social Security is often mentioned as a likely contributor to the decline in elderly poverty. Enacted in 1935, the Social Security system experienced rapid benefit growth in the post-WWII era. In fact, there is a striking association between the rise in Social Security expenditures per capita and the decline in elderly poverty, as Figure 1 illustrates (with both series scaled to fit on the same figure).

http://www.nber.org/bah/summer04/w10466.html

In addition, half of recipients of Medicare are lower than 200% of federal poverty level. So many of them will also qualify for many of the programs listed.

http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/health/fs149_medicare.pdf

And they get a lot more out of these services than they put into them.

At the end of the day, they only included things that didn't like while not including things they do like or need to win votes. And it's not very useful outside of making some kind of talking point to use on the campaign trail. And many people will likely associate the welfare spending claim with TANF.

If they were serious about dealing with debt, they would be talking about health-care programs and their effects throughout the federal system. For example, states may shift funds away from higher education for the purpose of funding its health-care services; as a result, the cost of education increases leading to higher costing programs like the pell grant.

Health care spending, military spending, and taxes are the largest problems in our budget.

 

[SixNein]

Please be reasonable. It had better not be TANF and TANF only. That's not a reasonable definition of "welfare".

One would just need to create a rigorous definition of welfare and include all programs that fall within it. For example, should programs that encourage social mobility be defined as welfare? If so then all programs that meet such a criteria should be included.

But at the end of the day, what is accomplished?

It seems to me that politicians are getting ready to practice the fine art of plucking feathers off a goose. They want to get the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing. Military spending, healthcare spending, and revenues are really messing up federal and state budgets. But they are also impossible to touch without getting zapped by the ultra partisan gods. So it seems to me that their going to let it go until the whole thing falls apart. Even with huge cuts in this list of yours, the growth rates on health-care will make up for it. The growth rates for 2013 is projected to be around 7.5%. So health-care costs are doubling around every 9.33 years at that rate. And it is going to cripple state and federal budgets, and it can't be covered up with cutting elsewhere forever. In my opinion, they are looking for cuts that will allow them to kick the big bang a little further down the road. And the further they kick it, the bigger the bang.

On the other hand, things are so partisan right now that our government isn't functioning properly. Just look at the major disruptions occurring. The fiscal cliff is a fairly dangerous thing because it injects a lot of uncertainty in the market. In addition, it would throw us back into recession. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't wait until the last second to do something about it. But eventually, one day, they are going to surprise everyone and simply not act. We keep using the assumption that some things are so terrible that they'll definitely act. I'm not sure that is a safe assumption anymore. The amount of people wanting us to default last year was staggering. The nation is turning into a situation where the ignorant rule the wise.

And that's starting to take a toll on me. Honestly, I could write a 40 page report on nothing but criticism of either party.