We're All to Blame

[rangerrebew]

We're All to Blame

The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending that far exceeds the authority enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Federal spending in 2017 will top $4 trillion. Social Security, at $1 trillion, will take up most of it. Medicare ($582 billion) and Medicaid ($404 billion) are the next-largest expenditures. Other federal social spending includes food stamps, unemployment compensation, child nutrition, child tax credits, supplemental security income and student loans, all of which total roughly $550 billion. Social spending by Congress consumes about two-thirds of the federal budget.
 
Source URL: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/were-all-blame

[Restored]

Social Security and Medicare are both funded "directly". IOW we pay for those benefits. A possible exception might be SS Disability.

Welfare programs amount to the government just handing money to people. In short, paying them to be poor. A good illustration is the guy standing on the corner in the cold rain holding a sign that reads something like "Down on my luck. Please help. God bless". If you give him money, you are essentially paying him to stand on that corner in the cold rain. It seems compassionate until you really think about it.

I know someone on SS Disability even though she really isn't disabled. Even though it is a small amount of money (because she never really held a job), she has to protect it by cheating(working for cash or services).  If she had gotten a regular job, like the one she works in order to free get access to a gym, she would make vastly more money. The man she lives with does the same thing. They are getting paid by the government to live in poverty.

People who are actually disabled have to settle for this but these people chose to go that path.