[jstalin]

"It’s quite different now. For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair."

It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state. There's no longer a need to think about working hard and getting out of the unemployment morass we're in. Government will take care of you!

Food stamp spending is at all-time record levels. Millions more people have gone on "disability" since 2007. The number of people in the work force continues to decline. Participation rate in the workforce is at multi-decade lows. The government-created housing bubble has made job mobility much more difficult, and of course both personal and public debt levels have reached saturation.

So, why not get unlimited student loans, get food stamps, get yourself declared to have a disability, and then gorge on all the benefits of being "poor" like a free cellphone, and reduced cost internet.

We've turned into a nation of dependents!

[knowtheory]

Unless you can a) point to numbers indicating that your claim is true, and more importantly b) justify how this isn't just a teeeeny tiiiiiiny drop in the bucket compared to defense spending, tax cuts and health care costs, your post is essentially irrelevant noise in the grander scheme of federal budget politics.

And come to think of it, even if food stamp spending is at an all time high, isn't that consistent with the idea that the economy is fucked and suddenly there are a lot more families dependent on food stamps because of the inability of the labor market to bring down unemployment?

[jstalin]

Food stamp usage breaking historical pattern of going down when joblesness decreases (and at an all time high): http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-go...

Two Charts Exposing America's Record Shadow Welfare State - Disability going up dramatically: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-r...

Oh, and I never said I support gigantic amounts of defense spending. I'm talking about dependence, not federal spending or budgeting. You've diverted what I said to another topic.

[dlokshin]

On top of that, the US Gov now accounts for ~25% of wages in this country:

http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g

[jbooth]

And that figure's been on a downward trend for the last several years. Take out military and it's been on a downward trend for a decade.

[zerostar07]

That isn't necessarily true. In general, some agree that the state should provide the basics, and as the centuries go by and the world gets richer, those basics become more and more. Reasonable welfare equals to higher productivity rather than laziness. If you are not convinced, look at the countries that provide the most in terms of welfare such as northern europe or japan and yet they are equally or more productive than the US.

[lotides]

Time to turn off the talk radio, buddy. People can't get jobs that don't exist. The people on unemployment, disability or other government benefits didn't conspire to ruin the economy. They're just trying to feed their families and survive long enough to find work. If you're looking for someone to blame, look at the people that got rich while the rest of America got poor. The ones the benefited from this disaster are the same ones that caused it.

[jstalin]

Did I say they conspired to ruin the economy? No. Did I say I blame them for the state of the economy? No.

And I don't listen to talk radio.

I'm blaming the excessive amount of debt in the system, both personal and public. It's crushing. Each additional dollar of public debt is having a negative real effect on the economy. Of course, the crushing level of bureaucracy and costs of running a small business are a big part of the problem as well. The economy is paralyzed by debt and regulatory uncertainty.

If Japan can manage as a majority-services economy, we can too. Manufacturing doesn't make the world suddenly better.

[tnuc]

Given that the US spends over half its budget on "defence" I really don't know where you are getting your ideas from.

Maybe some numbers and a source?

[tomjen3]

Did you even read what you are replying to?

He wasn't talking about the sum of money, just that it had gone up -- and he wasn't talking about how to finance it, just that it had caused more people to become dependent on assistance _even as more people are getting a job_. Meaning that it is not because there is no jobs.

[batista]

>He wasn't talking about the sum of money, just that it had gone up -- and he wasn't talking about how to finance it, just that it had caused more people to become dependent on assistance

Yes, we was talking BS.

It makes one feel very superior and active, to believe that poor people, black, hispanic, etc choose to live on food stamps (as "dependents") ignoring all those fabulous job opportunities available to them.

That self-worth-boost is one of the main reasons people perpetuate this crap. Go talk to actual persons living on food stamps to get a real idea of what it's like and what chances the have to escape it.

[dlokshin]

Perhaps you should be checking your numbers? Defense this year is 24%, which is half of 50%. Welfare + Social Security + Medicare = 54%.

http://cl.ly/1x3D1W3Z2c3Z2G1w400g

[vsmatck]

Half is incorrect. It's about 20%. Still a large amount.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget (look at first graph)

I really don't know where you are getting your ideas from. (you were asking for this :)

[jbooth]

Over half of the discretionary budget, which is the pot of money that things like food stamps come out of (way less than 1%, if anyone's counting).

The entitlement programs are run off of their own separate taxes and are legally "off-budget" compared to discretionary spending. Their budget isn't voted on, it's basically "automatic", coming from the legislation that created them. Same with debt repayment (which, coincidentally, represents defense spending in previous years, neat that it doesn't count that way on your pie chart though).

So that's where he's getting his ideas from. The federal budget that gets voted on by congress every year (in a good year) is over 50% defense, and more like 65% defense if you include Homeland Security, Dept of State, Veteran Affairs, etc in the defense column instead of domestic.

Here's a more useful graphic: http://www.deathandtaxesposter.com/

[nwj]

Don't know where you are getting the idea that half the US budget is spent on defense.

Estimates I've seen range from 20-40% depending on what you count as "defense". See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_S...

[jstalin]

Where did I support current or additional defense spending?

Frankly, it's just another welfare scheme. Defense spending is largely a waste.

[rhizome]

Maybe, but it's telling that you didn't mention it at all and instead focussed on blaming people on food stamps.

[jstalin]

It's telling of what exactly? That I didn't connect defense spending and dependence on handouts? You are reading more into what I'm saying than is there. Check your pre-conceived notions.

And, AGAIN, where do I blame the people on food stamps? The system is the problem, not the people who take advantage of it.

[jbooth]

Food stamps are a drop in the bucket compared to defense spending. If you're just a nonpartisan who's concerned about the budget, rather than a limbaughbeckbot, one would expect you'd be approximately 1,000x as outraged about defense (in numerical terms) as you are about food stamps.

[rhizome]

It's telling that you choose to focus on moral issues, such as what you interpret as dependence, rather than the hard-numbers "this is what consumes the most tax dollars for the least benefit" of defense spending.

Of course, "least benefit" is a value judgement, but the system, as you describe it, is actually concerned with maintaining the military and the financial industries much more than any idea of the country having its legs knocked out from under it by poor people. This is a fact, and is supportable by actual numbers, unlike your kicking of people while they're down.

[jbooth]

jstalin? Really?

[crusso]

Says jbooth? Irony much? :)

[jbooth]

jbooth is my name. jstalin's a guy who killed about as many people as Hitler.

[batista]

>It's because we've been pacified through handouts and the welfare state.

I call BS. As far as welfare states go, the US has one of the smallest and less pervasive of any modern western country. Actually, it's like in that field you're living in the medieval ages.

A "welfare state" with your health system, close to a million people in the streets and tens of millions eating with coupons, is not a welfare state, it's a joke.

Nobody in his right mind would call your "food stamps" a welfare support that makes people "dependents".

We would actually think of it as an incompetent, half-arsed mockery of a welfare system... more like charity than welfare.