Something EVERYONE Missed About the Debate
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Another issue that unfortunately not brought up at the debate. Debt, budgets, welfare. Nobody wants to touch any of this stuff. They really don’t. I’ve written about this over the years. had a piece back in 2012, basically describing our welfare state.
is almost like a drug in the United States government being a drug pusher. It was a very, very good piece today that was put out by Phil Graham and Jody Arrington in the Wall Street Journal, breaking down some of the numbers. Now, in their piece, they’re talking about the deficit debt here in the United States. And we always we point to entitlement spending there, Social Security, Medicare.
the debt, obviously interest on the debt, all of these, these programs that are out there and they’re an issue. They’re an issue. We talk about them here all the time. And quite frankly, in the article, they mentioned that the drain that they are, but their argument quite frankly is means tested social welfare is worse. Here’s some of the numbers. Okay.
Social Security, Social Security, 60 % of the time there’s been cash surpluses. In 2023, it was 88 % funded. You want to take a look at Medicare payroll taxes funded 50%. Again, it’s not great shakes. It really isn’t. And there’s going to have to be something done with that. But again, you want to take a look at social welfare spending.
These numbers are astronomical. $1 .6 trillion. $1 .6 trillion. All of the unobligated general revenue, Social Security, Medicare, debt, all of it outside, 72 .6 % of unobligated revenue goes to welfare. Some form
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of welfare. Let’s go back. Let’s go back to the war on poverty. Let’s go back to 1967. This is adjusted for inflation. You got to get your arms around these numbers here. A household in the bottom quintile of income recipients.
Okay, they got $7 ,352 back in 1967. This is adjusted for inflation. You what it is today? 64 ,700.
780 % increase. 780 % increase, which is nine times the rise in income earned by the average American household. Think about that for a second. That’s what people are getting. $64 ,700. And they compare. We want to talk about defense spending.
Defense spending in 1967 was 68 % of unobligated general revenue. It’s now 37 .2%. Okay, again, I don’t think that we should be spending that much money on defense either, but you take a look at the portion of the budget and say to yourself, say to yourself, what if this money was given back to the taxpayers? In essence, you know,
allowing people to go out there and build and create what could have happened. You’d have increased economic output. You’d have increased wages here in the country. But what do we do? I know we send more money to government to fund welfare payments. We redistribute a larger share of our GDP. Right now it’s 29 .4 % than any other country in the entire world except France.
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France is at 30 .1.
Think about that. I’ve said this again and again and again. We are a welfare state. Take a look at France. France has spent nearly as much on the military as we do. 29 .4%. 29 .4 of our GDP on welfare. After counting all transfer payments as income,
to the recipients and the taxes as income lost by taxpayers and adjusting for household size. The average households in the bottom, second and middle quintiles, they all roughly have the same income. What does that mean? People who are making the least amount of money out there are in essence, due to transfer payments, making as much money that are in the middle.
Quintile. I’m trying to explain this a different way. Okay, the portion of prime work -age persons in the bottom quintile who actually work has fallen from 36 % from 68%. Now think about that. 68 % of the people back in 1967 that were the poorest out there were working.
Now only 36 % of them work and they’re making the same amount of money as the people in the middle quintile are due to transfer payments. And it’s the same across the board. Again, the Census Bureau doesn’t even count any of this. They don’t count this as far as income is concerned because if they did, there’d be a lot more quote, unquote, middle class people out there.
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Yeah, I go to the piece that I did back in 2012. And actually talked about FDR to start off when he is 1935 State of the Union message where he proposed Social Security, unemployment insurance, aid to dependent children. But he put a warning in there and he talked about how the dependence, continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual
and moral disintegration, fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic. This is FDR 1935, State of the Union, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is a violation of the traditions of America. Could you imagine a politician saying that to
This is as patron saint of what this FDR saying this in 1935 State of the Union address.
take a look, you take a look at the culture of poverty here in the United States and the Cato Institute’s done a great job with this and putting out studies. Welfare is both a consequence and a cause of several conditions that could be described as social pathologies. Dependency, poverty, out of wedlock births, non -employment, abortion,
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violent crime. Now again, you would associate all of those things with substance abuse, correct? No, they’re also associated with welfare. So theoretically, you could say that, okay, welfare is a drug. It’s a drug. People get addicted to it. We see this multi -generations in Section 8 housing. And we’re at a point in time right now where
Again, you take a look at the amount of people that are receiving it. And I remember this quote. I had a look it up. I forgot exactly who said it and I had to do a little research today. was actually a professor, Alexander Teitler. Alexander Fraser Teitler, was a professor in Edinburgh, Scotland, late.
late 1780s to the early 1800s, lawyer and a professor over there. And he said something that stuck with me years ago. then I seen this and I said, gotta pull that quote up again. He said, a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves or Jess from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty.
from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence all the way around back down to bondage again.
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We’ve discussed recently on the podcast, we’ve got 50 % of the population that’s not paying any taxes right now. Yeah, we’re gonna be 250 years old in a couple years. Just saying. Watchdog on wallstreet .com.