For Many Reasons, America's Fundamental Problem Is Welfare

Everyone is asking, "What's wrong with America?" We will cover police stalking by Black Lives Matter another day, but it is a symptom, and President Obama calling it a First Amendment right to "Speak truth to power" that is "messy" encourages the murder of police. ~~~~~ For several reasons, THE fundamental problem in America is the explosion of social safety-net programs. Last year, 45.8 million people, 14.3% of Americans, received food stamps -- a huge 166% increase since 2000. At the same time Medicaid enrollment doubled from 34.5 million to 68.9 million, and disability claims increased 61%. ~~~~~ The problem isn’t that social programs exist. America is always ready to help those in need. The problem is the programs' crushing costs as they rapidly balloon, becoming so big that they are almost impossible to control, opening the door to fraud, which is rampant. Consider the $60 billion increase in payouts for food stamps since 2000. The most rapid part of that growth comes from 18-49 year-olds who have no children and are physically able to work. Since 2008, under President Obama, this able-bodied food stamp group has exploded from 2 million to 5 million. What started as a "temporary" necessity after the 2008 economic crisis has become an "entitlement" that the government doesn’t worry about, causing lax control against cheating. In another fraud-laden program, Obamacare, the US Government Accountability Office says the department that oversees the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) “has assumed a passive approach to identifying and preventing fraud.” Weak oversight is not lost on those who want to 'game' the system -- there are actually websites that explain how to do it. ~~~~~ The federal government already spends far more money than it collects. So, it continues to operate by creating more money out of thin air -- with a printing press of sorts. What they’re really doing is selling the debt they create to other countries in the form of notes and bonds. The federal government's runaway spending has put America $19 trillion in debt. It is not caused only by social safety-net programs, but the US national debt has risen from $10 trillion to $19 trillion under President Obama. And, instead of reducing the regulatory burden on business and lowering business taxes to make the US more competitive -- which would have helped business grow and create jobs, thus reducing the government's welfare burden -- Obama chose to spend on expanded entitlements for the jobless and poor. To no avail -- 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson announced the “War on Poverty." Under the Obama administration -- five decades, countless federal welfare programs, and $20 trillion later -- poverty levels remain largely unchanged, even according to official numbers, and dependence on government has reached unprecedented heights. The Census Bureau found the number of Americans in poverty was 45.3 million as of 2013. That's almost 6 million more people in poverty than there were in 2008, just before Obama took office -- 13.2% of Americans were in poverty in 2008, and in 2013, it was 14.5%. ~~~~~ A 2015 study by the University of California at Berkeley found that the federal government and states spent $152.8 billion a year on food stamps, health insurance, and cash assistance programs, half of it going to working families having trouble making ends meet. The Berkeley report found that American workers in many occupations depend on public assistance to supplement their income -- the working poor are employed in child care, home care, fast food and part-time college faculty jobs. But, while many recipients have jobs, unemployed Americans who don’t have much education are more likely to rely on benefits for a longer period of time. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it's true that many people receiving welfare have jobs. But there are other trends among people who receive welfare. To understand who is actually receiving public assistance in America, the US Census Bureau recently studied participation in six major welfare programs from 2009 to 2012. Tomorrow.