The Angry White Guy

Sorry this is rather long it just can’t be said in a couple of paragraphs.

As everyone runs around claiming Obama is the new FDR and rant about how great FDR was, well let’s take a look at what FDR did for this country, LBJ enhanced and BHO has supercharged.

Let me start by quoting one of the Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin…

“We should make the poor uncomfortable and kick them out of poverty.”

Very wise words from Ben Franklin indeed, however FDR created ‘The New Deal’ which was to make the poor comfortable and keep them in their poverty and completely ignoring the wise words of the founding fathers. From the ‘The New Deal’ we have a host of handout including but not limited to, Social Security, Welfare, Food Stamps, unemployment insurance, United States Housing Authority and the Housing Act of 1937 which after a number of name changes gave rise to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Section 8 Housing. The New Deal was one of the largest socialist programs in American history that has single handedly accomplished more to undermine the independent spirit of man than any other program to date. The New Deal was a raw deal for the taxpayer.

The problem with The New Deal (i.e. Welfare) is there is no encouragement to liberate ones self from it’s shackles. It is as I have expressed before a reward for failure. FDR knew what so many progressives/liberals know and Obama is putting into full swing is simple line that Thomas Jefferson cautions the new nation against…

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have”

In this day if you are poor the government will provide your health care, your housing, your food, your money, everything and the progressive/liberals have been promising the poor for nearly 70 years to lift them from the depths of their poverty and give them a new beginning, which is nothing more than a bald face lie. And for 45 years the liberals have been waging the longest, the most costly war in American history the so-called War on Poverty thanks to LBJ. The so-called War on Poverty has cost the American taxpayer TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars over the last 45 years, so how much is spent and how is it broke down?

From Edgar K. Browning of the Baltimore Examiner, Washington Examiner does a good job itemizing the cost for one year…

In 2005, $620 billion was spent on more than eighty welfare programs funded by federal, state, and local governments. But low-income persons receive benefits from other government programs that are not designated as welfare programs. Most notably, they receive benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and the public school system.

I estimate that Social Security benefits for those in the poorest fifth of the population totaled $100 billion in 2005. Medicare provided another $115 billion, and educating the children of low-income families cost $105 billion more. (These figures do not measure total spending on these programs but only the expenditures benefiting those in the lowest fifth of the income distribution.) To these sums we may add $40 billion in uncompensated medical care and $78 billion in private charity.

Grand total: $1.058 trillion in 2005. It would be larger today.

If a trillion dollars were simply given to those counted as poor by the federal government (37 million in 2005), it would amount to $27,000 per person. That’s $81,000 for a family of three, higher than the median income of all American families, and far greater than the poverty threshold of $15,577.

$81,000 for a family of three? I’d hardly call that poor would you? And you wonder how those that are the “neediest among us” to quote Obama can afford a Cadillac or Lexus, a big screen TV and a PS3 just to mention a couple of the burdens of life in poverty. And before you say that’s a myth, it’s not as for the record I work on a lot of HUD/Low Income rental housing and I’ve yet to be in one where they were “poor”, they all had gaming consoles, big TV’s, washer/dryer, computers, plenty of clothes, food, cokes and liquor with no signs of the abject poverty we are led to believe they live in, a la Henrietta Hughes. The endless parade of government assistants allows the “poorest” among us to live far better than majority of the world but yet they continue to whine. This system has also enabled them to be comfortable in their poverty and encouraged them to remain there. The reality is that if one gets a job and no long qualifies for the majority of government assistances their quality of life will go down they’re punished for their employment, therefore the motivator to “free” ones self from poverty has been rendered moot by the system of entitlements brought on by the Democrats. I believe that the Democrats want people to remain wards of the state as if a person has NO a vested interest in the tax burden they will be supportive of tax increases and spend government to “improve their life”. It’s a simple plan really and the Democrats are planning it for all it’s worth. The majority of Democrats need poverty to maintain power while the Republicans need a base that is taxed. Only Clinton pasted any real reform to the welfare system and this was only when the republicans held both the House and Senate.

Regarding Clinton’s plan it’s said best by Dick Armey…

…the most successful anti-poverty initiative of the past half century wasn’t the creation of welfare, but rather the 1996 welfare reform bill.

Before 1996, welfare was Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the country’s largest cash assistance program and the centerpiece of Johnson’s War on Poverty. In 1996 welfare reform changed the program’s name to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This wasn’t just a superficial change in name. Rather, the 1996 reforms eliminated welfare’s “entitlement” status—ending the automatic “right” to benefits. If you are able-bodied and need assistance, you now have to get training or work to receive benefits. Since 1996, welfare is properly understood as temporary assistance in tough times, rather than as a way of life.

Now thanks to Obama it’s back to being a way of life as the welfare to work was repealed in the largest spending bill in American history H.R.1. and the “Welfare Reform Rollback” within the bill includes $5 billion to create a new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program emergency fund. The emergency fund would be used to provide money to States that increase TANF caseloads or provide increased short-term cash benefits. The bill waives requirements that obligate states to consider rising caseloads when determining TANF work requirements. Thus, the legislation would encourage States to increase caseloads without increasing the number of individuals required to obtain work, which was a key component of the 1996 welfare reform that has dramatically decreased the number of Americans dependent on welfare. However, the Democrats in reality want a end or reduction of those on welfare, they would prefer the alleged poor remain on so-called entitlements as this is more or less a building blocks of the liberal Democrat base of power. See it’s simple really, the more people that have no tax burden or in fact receive monies back from the government not paid in (read Earned Income Tax Credit) the better for the Democrats, they can claim to be the champion of the “little people” the “poorest amongst us” and the downtrodden, because those evil rich Republicans don’t care about you, no the reality is that it’s the Democrats that don’t care about the poor, their economic failure and dependency on Democrat placed system is key to Liberal success.

Let take a look at the how taxes work and you can easily see how the Democrats can exploit the tax cuts for the rick argument, it is no better defined than in Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics Go read it now, I’ll wait here …. ok you’re back let’s continue.

From El Rushbo’s Who pays the taxes …

Think of it this way: less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like “thousandaires.” The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned $293,000-plus.) Americans who want to are continuing to improve their lives – and those who don’t want to, aren’t. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:

Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes (Down from 2000 figure: 56.47%). The top 10% pay 64.89% (Down from 2000 figure: 67.33%). The top 25% pay 82.9% (Down from 2000 figure: 84.01%). The top 50% pay 96.03% (Down from 2000 figure: 96.09%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%! And who earns what? The top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income. The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%). The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%); the top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%), and the top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.

So you see how the Democrats can easily exploit the “Tax Cuts for the Rich” straw man style argument if you cut taxes to where 50% are not paying any taxes and 40% of the people were not paying any in the first place, it’s rather easy to rally a base of anger over the top 10% or top 50% getting the tax cuts. The oblivious fact that the top 50% pay he vast majority (96.03%) of the taxes is moot to them. Thus making the Democrat’s agenda a War not on Poverty, but in reality a War on Capitalism as to be a successful capitalist you make money and the Democrats do not believe that is fair so they tax it, then again as we’ve learned from the majority of Obama nominations the Democrats in leadership fail to pay many of their taxes so why should they care how high they go? Just as the majority of the Democrat base have no tax burden, the majority of the democrat base is dependent on the system for there welfare thanks to the raw deal/New Deal of FDR and as long as a vast number of voters are trapped in a cycle of entitlements it will be a uphill claim for those for us that actually pay taxes at the end of the year.

There is no better example of what could happen here than what is happening in the UK. Then where will we be? In a country full of dependent people incapable of achievement do to a built in failure mentality. Thanks FDR, thanks LBJ and thanks BHO between you three, you’re bringing the greatest nation in modern times to it’s demise and that the legacy of FDR’s New Deal in a nut shell.

Tweet Buzz DIGG Facebook Ping Reddit Stumble

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the world of MEGA-WELFARE!
2. Just a reminder…
3. Tax, Tax, Tax and Tax Some More
4. 45% said their Tax Rate is about right
5. Obama says tax the poor and downtrodden.
6. Why America is losing jobs?
7. Do the right thing??
8. Obama’s Phony Tax Cuts
9. Obama dictates bailout money, why not welfare too?
10. Truth is a virus