Data Point - Obama has redistributed $4 Trillion in 4 years - poverty rate up - Granite Grok

Data Point – Obama has redistributed $4 Trillion in 4 years – poverty rate up

“…the poor you will have with you always…”

US Has Spent 3.7 Trillion On Welfare Over Past 5 Years“We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not paid into by the recipient,” says the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee.

“The enormous sum spent on means-tested assistance is nearly five times greater than the combined amount spent on NASA, education, and all federal transportation projects over that time. ($3.7 trillion is not even the entire amount spent on federal poverty support, as states contribute more than $200 billion each year to this federal nexus—primarily in the form of free low-income health care.)

When you look at the budget, more and more, the Federal Government doesn’t govern; it only moves money from people who earn it to those that haven’t.  That’s what it does best – writes checks. And given that the poverty rate has not go down (in fact, has ticked up the last few years), one should be asking “If the whole goal was to provide a handup out of poverty, what are we who are taxed getting for our dollars?  Are all these programs worth it, if we aren’t seeing the rate go down?”

(H/T:  Weekly Standard)

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