"welfare" "spending on poor" as primary cause of gov spending problems is a misconception

Rebuttals "this website expands a few more expenditures on the poor... but even it with thwith the formal analysis doesn't put spending at much more than ten percent. http://www.motherjones.com........." 10% is still very significant when it comes to the budget. Although it's actually more than that. I'll show in my arguments. "most general spending is on things like EPA or adminstrative stuff... not poor stuff. SS is a middle class and everyone issue, and in theory is suppose to be self supporting by pay roll taxes. same with medicare, which is probably atleast half of the health spending." Actually, most general spending is on entitlements. This is important, because entitlement spending is nondiscretionary. This means it is automatic, and can't be changed unless congress passes legislation to change it. Much of this entitlement spending goes to the poor. This graph illustrates how much money we actually spend on entitlements. "medicaid is for poor people, is probably less than half of that healthcare spending. but perhaps we could account it for half for the sake of argument? if health care is twenty to tewnty five percent of our budget, that's like ten to twelve percent of our budget." 12% is a lot of money compared to a lot of other things we put money in. "food stamps are only a hundred billion out of a three and a half trillion budget. two to three percent maybe. national debt and defense are for everyone." Everything adds up. A hundred billion is a lot of money. "not to mention, most of the national debt is due to borrowing against social security. which is an accounting issue more than anything that has to do with the poor." The only reason we have social security is to prevent poverty in old age. This is certainly for the poor. "welfare is a program that in most states, at least ohio, is a woman can only get cash assistance for three years if shes poor and has kids. that is the maximum. this was a result of welfare reform during the clinton admin, ie the feds do match some money spent. but i belieeve this is part of health spending and not much more than a few billion per year." Welfare spending is about $179.7 billion in total for states, and $430 billion for the federal government. This is hardly just a few billion per year. (1) "there's also section 8 housing which is a marginal amount compared to the overall budget. (not that i woudln't mind redireecting this money somehow else but that's beside the point) grants to college students only add up to a fraction of the education budget which is eighty billion... maybe thirty billion max? (not that i wouldnt mind cutting this too but aaginst besie point) maybe a percent?" Student assistance, including grants, loans, direct payments, and contracts add up to $195 billion in total state spending. This isn't just a percent. (2) "so if we add it up, we got medicaid food stamps section 8 student grants matches for welfare. not much else? that adds up to like fifteen, sixteen percent of our budget.??" You're missing a lot, and it's a lot more. "these are rough estimates. but enough to show it's not poor people as our problems and "welfare" etc. it's mostly governmetn mismanagement, borrowing against programs, not paying for what we spend, cutting taxes while running deficits, not keeping overall spending lower, etc." Poor people are a problem in America. We don't like it when people are poor, so then we spend hundreds of billions in trying to make their lives better. Arguments State spending The states spend a substantial amount of their money on the poor in various ways. This graph shows the spending as a percentage of total spending, in 2010. The 16% welfare is obvious to notice, but other spending on the poor is much more subtle. Of the $436 billion the states spend on health care, $337 billion is in vendor payments (welfare). This makes the welfare spending in healthcare at around 23% of total state spending.(1) Not including the money we give to the poor through education, social security, food stamps etc., this is still 39% of the state spending. This proves that spending on the poor is a primary cause of government spending problems. Sources: 1. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com... 2.http://www.usaspending.gov...