A crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”-- Rudiger Dornbusch
“Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.”---Moses Maimonides
“Creating independence in a poor person is the highest level of charity…jobs are the best anti-poverty program…’Be fruitful and multiply’ extends beyond procreation to all that humans do to provide for themselves and others…What works, is work---creative, entrepreneurial, and free”—Rev Robert Sirico
The American public's dependence on the federal government(1) had shot up 23% under BObama. Today, under the biden regime it’s gotten worse. Dependence programs accounts for more than 70% of the federal budget. At the same time, fewer Americans pay income taxes---the top 25% of earners paid 89% of all income taxes (70% in 1981) while the bottom half paid 2.3% (7% in 1981). For the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income! Another 20% are government workers(2). That means only 34% pay taxes enjoyed by the rest.
Despite spending over $27 TRILLION since 1965 there has been little progress on poverty. Americans still counted as poor, and the share of those living in poverty is close to what it was when the liberals/democrats war on poverty began.
Today, more people than ever before depend on the federal government for housing, food, and income. Welfare policies should help those truly in need and empower Americans to achieve financial independence, to achieve what every free, prosperous and open society needs, self-sufficiency.
Meanwhile, an all-time high of Americans are on disability. And many not because they're disabled, but rather because they can't or won’t find jobs in biden's economy and have exited the workforce. The poverty rate was in sharp decline when lbj pushed for his politically motivated war on poverty. It fell from almost 23% in the late 1950s to 17.3% in 1965, a year after the program was announced and before it could have made any significant impact. Since then, the rate has remained virtually flat — never better than 11%, never worse than 15%. Our government has already spent over $27 trillion in taxpayers' money on at least 80 means-tested welfare programs in the past 60 years.
The current economic effects account for little of the change in the index. liberal social programs account for the reminder. For over a half-century now the so-called "Great Society" has attempted to socially engineer the poor upward at great cost to our nation's fiscal solvency. Despite transferring all those $trillions, those classified as poor remain poor. Yet the left-wing has no exit strategy and no withdrawal date for their war on poverty. On the contrary, their true intention is to enslave the poor to ensure their vote for the politicians who promise to keep the gravy train running at full steam.
The left-wing/democrats’ social security expansion Act would expand benefits, and its enormous tax increases would exacerbate Social Security’s strain on workers and families, making all but the oldest generations worse off. The $33.8 trillion in tax hikes on workers, savers, investors, and small business owners would distort positive activities and cause significant economic damage. By taking more income away from people and promising them higher government benefits, the act would make Americans more dependent on government and more vulnerable to an increasingly likely fiscal crisis. Policymakers should improve incomes and economic growth through a targeted structure that increases benefits for the lowest earners and gives workers the opportunity to build wealth that they own and can pass on to their families.
What if the goal of public policy were not to maximize consumption but rather to make people truly better off over time? Thus, when we ask whether people are better off, what we really should mean is: do they have a greater agency in setting the course of their lives? Are they better able to form stable families and find fulfilling work that supports those families and allows the time to enjoy them? Or more of them able to earn the respect of the fellow citizens and places of pride in their communities, and to raise children able to do the same?
The proper way government can contribute to the effort to drive the poor out of poverty is through truly real education (and not the current woke version we get from our public-school monopoly run by the teachers’ unions) fair taxation and regulation, which will lead to economic expansion and career opportunities for those who are now merely content with living on food stamps, unemployment checks and housing subsidies. The best way to support an organic ethos of individual, family and community economic prosperity, freedom and a vibrant civil society is to reduce the size and scope of government intervention.
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