3.7 Trillion over the last 5 years in Welfare

[BraveUlysses]

"the only moral welfare is my welfare"

[einhander]

Here is some welfare for you clowns:

http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140109/congress-makes-nasa-build-a-350-million-structure-it-doesnt-need

I'd rather some poor kids get a nutritious lunch.

[tjts1]

3.7 Trillion over the last 5 years in Welfare

Thank you for finally bringing some attention to the problem of corporate welfare.

[mar1t1me]

The Pentagon has "misplaced" $8.5 trillion since 1996....all that cash unaccounted for....

And let's talk about the habit of for-profit companies offsetting their employee costs onto the taxpayers by paying so little and offering so few hours they need to actively instruct their employees to seek public assistance. Working, but still on a form of assistance!

Meanwhile the DOW is at record highs....week after week.

In the '80s', my dad made $31,000/yr as a mechanic at Delta Airlines. That would be roughly equivalent to nearly $100K now. He got a nice pension, great medical, and flight privileges, too. CEO pay was not outrageous at the time either.

Something has changed in the way companies think of their workers. When Delta suffered a loss, back in the '80's recession, the top officers took a 25% pay cut, but didn't downsize or lay anyone off. Think that would happen now?

No. Companies that need to look better for the 4th qtr, decide to go for the short term fix, and suddenly thousands are out of work, like B of A recently.

According to MIT, the Living Wage Calculator states a single parent in the cheapest state in America in which to live would need to make $21/hr to provide for basic needs.

If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be nearly $20/hr.

Lastly, even if Walmart, the nation's largest single employer, were to suddenly pay $20/hr to the employees making minimum wage now, it would still profit in the billions, while stimulating the economy by having workers who are both able to afford to buy things and who no longer need public assistance!

[squidmaster]

^ exactly.

If it weren't for some sort of fiduciary assistance, when the company I was working for went out of business and I was looking for work and trying to pay student loans, I wouldn't have been able to keep a roof over my family's head. We made it by on a very humble $30 a week in groceries from food stamps, and only a small amount of unemployment. Now I've gone right back to paying into the system, because I was able to live until I found more work, and the only reason I regret paying into it is the seriously misplaced fundamentals of our government.

A majority of people on food stamps do have jobs and work, but because of our unequivocal minimum wage and large corporate centric growth system, the large population of nontechnically-skilled or inexperienced workers can mostly only find jobs with larger corporations that are able to hire these types of workers that smaller businesses cannot take risks with.

[Q5Quint]

A friend of mine had both parents die when he was 19. He moved in with his sister to save up for college and his spleen exploded one night. I believe rupture is the technical term, something about pissing black because his kidneys were filtering all the blood cells out of his blood. He passed out in the bathroom and woke up in a hospital operating table his sis had taken him too.

'Welfare' gave them a chance when they would have been out on the street otherwise. Now he is a biology professor~ horay! The system works! Now his much higher salary will be paying back more than he cost in taxes! We all win!

But those are not the stories you hear on fox news....

From a random message board post:

That's the Republican wet-dream, right? Not focusing on defense-spending, or war appropriations bills, or Social Security, or Medicare, or $100 billion per year in corporate welfare. The meme is blaming "the takers." So if you can get people to believe that Medicaid & Pell Grants & WIC checks & energy-assistance for heating homes is all just "welfare" for the lazy & indolent, then you can whip up the anger of anyone who doesn't consider themselves as such and create an environment of class-warfare that leaves the rich and well-connected to continue pillaging public coffers for the real big-ticket items. And people seem to love this scam because they fall for it again... and again... and again...

I find these department of commerce statistics that say 4.1% of Americans are on 'welfare', about 12.8 million. In addition to that we have about 47 million on food stamps and 6 million on unemployment.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/

Then I see and article titled: "Great: More Americans on Welfare Than Working Full Time"

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2013/10/25/great-more-americans-on-welfare-than-working-full-time-n1731984

To me at least 'welfare' means you are getting a rent check from uncle sam. Food stamps and reduced price lunch aimed at children seems like a interesting way to count those dollars as unnecessary. Who else is getting a rent check from uncle sam? I can sleep at night if that money is going to children, elderly, or people on hard times. I cant sleep at night if that money is going to a defense contractor we could have gone without, instead of kids and elderly. Sure we will have to deal with some folks gaming the system and stealing when they shouldn't, but so does our military, and we should do everything we can to keep that number as low as possible while also not forgetting what the mission was in the beginning: to help the damned kids.

[einhander]

People on public assistance are pretty frugal.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/this-chart-blows-up-the-myth-of-the-welfare-queen/282452/

You heartless bitches.

[rwh11385]

I see us all as animal's,it only takes about a week with out food for nearly anyone to begin to resort to more survivalististic means to acquire it.............. Katrina ring any bells.... people resort to primitive mentality when the comforts of modern society go away even for a short time, easy and plentiful food on the shelves of every store on every corner is the hallmark of our easy modern society.

Hunger is one of the greatest motivators, it can inspire a man to do great things, but it also can compel a man to do deplorable things just as easily. Just depends on which way will make the pangs go away the easiest and the fastest.........

You're free to focus on Katrina and ignore Nashville's flood, post-Sandy, and Boulder's flood with people helping each other instead of behaving like those in New Orleans did, but thinking so little of your fellow man sounds awfully sad, lonely, and isolated.

And if being hungry makes people primitive and capable of doing deplorable things, then why would it be a good idea to try to starve them by cutting SNAP benefits in times of need following the recession?

Giving farm owners like $40k in direct subsidy and providing virtually no cap on crop insurance is wasteful welfare, keeps agriculture prices high, and harms developing nations.

Much more pernicious than a few thousand baby mamas scheming the system. Some people genuinely need welfare, most corporate farmers don't.

GOP says that only the SNAP portion of the Farm Bill is welfare because much of their voters are in farm states that benefit from said subsidies.

Just another reinforcement of the same shit from him. "the only moral welfare is my welfare"

Duh, just like they like to get people up in arms about welfare following the financial crisis as a source of deficits while ignoring social security / medicare long-term liabilities since it would offend their voters. Hook, Line, and Sinker - them be suckers for what their politicians lobbyists and pundits want them to be angry about.

[mrsleeve]

Hence why my post was tounge in cheek

[BraveUlysses]

No, I called you on your BS and you're doing a poor job of backpedaling.

Link me a story on the Zumwalt-class ships being on time and on budget.

Backpedaling is what he does best. Like when I called him out for saying that we should turn the middle east into a glass parking lot and he backpedaled and claimed he wasn't a proponent of genocide





I did look it up, this article says its on budget but still laughably expensive.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=9294213

So far, construction of the first-in-class Zumwalt, the largest U.S. Navy destroyer ever built, is on time and on budget, something that's a rarity in new defense programs, officials said. And the Navy believes the ship's big gun, stealthy silhouette and advance features will make it a formidable package.

But they are clearly so damn expensive that they cut back the production numbers significantly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#Background_and_funding

On 6 April 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that DoD's proposed 2010 budget will end the DDG-1000 program at a maximum of three ships.[26] Also in April, the Pentagon awarded a fixed-price contract with General Dynamics to build the three destroyers, replacing a cost-plus-fee contract that had been awarded to Northrop Grumman. The first DDG-1000 destroyer is expected to cost $3.5 billion, the second is to cost approximately $2.5 billion, and the third even less.[27]

What had once been seen as the backbone of the navy's future surface fleet[28] with a planned production run of 32, has since been replaced by destroyer production reverting to the Arleigh Burke class after ordering three Zumwalts.[29] The Zumwalt's failure[30] is a result of a negative feedback loop of spiraling costs and plummeting productions numbers described by Chuck Spinney as the death spiral, joining other projects such as the F-22, and Future Combat System.[31]

still a huuuuuge fucking waste of money but lets complain about poor people instead

[mrsleeve]

No, I called you on your BS and you're doing a poor job of backpedaling.

Link me a story on the Zumwalt-class ships being on time and on budget.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-navys-largest-destroyer-arrives-on-time-on-budget-named-for-late-admiral/2013/10/20/d82c1ab4-39b3-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html

So far, construction of the first-in-class Zumwalt, the largest U.S. Navy destroyer ever built, is on time and on budget, something that's a rarity in new defense programs, officials said. And the Navy believes the ship's big gun, stealthy silhouette and advance features will make it a formidable package.

Seems to be ap story reprinted in several other places as well including ABC local outlets fox and others including the huffpo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20131020/us--navy-destroyer/?utm_hp_ref=arts&ir=arts

How would you like that crow, poached, blackened, or how I prefer mine, pan seared with onions and a nice ginger root sauce?????

[nando]

There are only three of them because the price grew. And grew. And grew. Even the Navy wanted to nix the program.

At that number, it is poor spending. When you consider the requirements they saddled it with, you have to wonder how it will perform in action.

how many times have we heard that? too many. you know it's bad when the military says "no, we don't want this, it's too expensive" and congress rams it down our throats anyway, because they're getting contributions from the defense contractors.

it's pretty pathetic that we only spend 2% on education and 10x that on wars that just piss everyone off. and then wonder why young people can't get jobs and end up on welfare..

[z31maniac]

I was just noteing what I read in several recent. News stories about the them. It was a largely tounge in cheek post

No, I called you on your BS and you're doing a poor job of backpedaling.

Link me a story on the Zumwalt-class ships being on time and on budget.

[mrsleeve]

I was just noteing what I read in several recent. News stories about the them. It was a largely tounge in cheek post

[z31maniac]

What why its on time on budget and its electric, you weird leftist hippies like shit that runs on electricity like a Tesla and a Prius and shit. whats not to like its the tesla/Prius of big medium sized ships????????????

Oh fucking riiiiiight. The last company I worked for was doing a bunch of the electrical work for those ships and the DDG projects.

On-time and on-budget is the furthest thing from the truth.

In fact, I'd be shocked if you could find any instances of defense projects like this that are on-time and on-budget.