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Awhile ago my right-wing (to say the least) old high school buddy, now email adversary,
forwarded this by Mike Huckabee.
"Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2011, between
food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid, and other benefits, the average US
houshold below the poverty line received $168 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 equialent of $30 an hour for a 40-hour wek, while the average job pays $25.
an hour. And the person who works also has to pay taxes, which drops his pay to $21 an hour.
I's no wonder that welfare is now the biggest part of the budget, more than Social
Security or defense. And why would anwant to get off welfare when working pays $8
an hour less?"
My response to my "shut-off-all-the-goodies-programs" old buddy, and to Huckabee:
Hackabee's [sic] figures are absurd as statistics. (Absurd, here, is euphemism for "devious").
1) Averaging-in Medicaid as welfare-income-level factor is at least specious. If not devious.
If not fallacious, we must calculate "private-sector" (paid-for, insured, etc.) medical costs in
the "median houshold income in America":.What about the multi-million dollar new (or renovated/
retrofitted) schools for the suburbanities? Are these figures factored-in as part of personal income
already, or would they, if they were, (of course they would) total well in excess of $50,000 per
year of average non-welfare family income. And a significant part of that derived through gov't
(schools, etc.) funding.
2)What, pray tell, do the masses of welfare recipients derive from their dole? Upward mobility?
Hah! A vacation home? Cruise? Yes, perhaps a cheap stereo, flat screen TV, maybe a Whoopie Pie
for the kids' indulgence at the treasure-trove-trough of . . . at the meagre survival level of living
(by Western-nation standards, at least)
3)What, pray tell, will the masses receive in order to maintain food and shelter and such if
welfare funding is drastically slashed? Or is the question beside the point . . . for "seize" may
come to be their ony alternative?
4)Given that the "median houshold invcome in America" is less than what welfare pays, what
a shocking and disgusting figure in an equation of wealth distribution -- thousands making even
after-tax millions per year off dividends or speculations, but the wealth of the population,
"wages", thus so limited if not actually diminished (in part through inflation, in part through
job--income-loss-into-service-employment . . .or "temp" status) . . . What an indictment of
our system that one can (even questionably) compute that working for a living makes one less
than welfare pays.
5)What absolute fool would fail to take advantage of an actually Capitalistic vchance to
"get ahead" by choosing to have . . .less income . . . by getting off welfare? In what context
other than "Buffet-benevolence" would anyone opt to acquire less, especially when the NOT LESS
(welfare) provides but minimal necessity-level standard of living. Considered in the context of
all the above, the choosing to remain on welfare rather than lower one's income really seems
like a Capitalistic choice -- and benefit -- because cent of economic input for that demographic
gets paid right back into the commercial system!!!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'll pursue this in subsequent posts.
Greetings to all ad Demohub.