Smart, Rich Conservatives versus Poor, Dumb Conservatives

[ajb]

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The programs are all very different from each other, conflating them muddies the waters.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/03/us/growth-in-welfare-cost-outpaces-number-on-rolls.html

The primary cause, they say, is a complex and bloated bureaucracy.

You're basing your argument on an article from almost NINETEEN YEARS AGO?!

Google is your friend here. For example, administrative costs equal about 6.3% of the money spent on TANF:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ofa/2011_tanf_data_with_states.pdf

[ajb]

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The programs are all very different from each other, conflating them muddies the waters.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/03/us/growth-in-welfare-cost-outpaces-number-on-rolls.html

The primary cause, they say, is a complex and bloated bureaucracy.

You're basing your argument on an article from almost NINETEEN YEARS AGO?!

Google is your friend here. For example, administrative costs equal about 6.3% of the money spent on TANF:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ofa/2011_tanf_data_with_states.pdf

And, for comparison, the American Cancer Society spends about 9% on administration, and another 11% on fundraising:

http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/cancer/american-cancer-society-in-atlanta-ga-186/financial

[ajb]

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One, it's the NYT.

Two, if you believe that the administration suddenly stopped being 'bloated' after the age of Clinton, I have a bridge to sell you.

So you'd rather cite a newspaper article from two decades ago than the actual statistics on administrative costs for a major government welfare program (TANF) that I've provided above?

[ajb]

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Given that the NYT is a hostile witness, yes. Or are you calling the Times a liar?

They also said (in 1994, the year of that article) that Bill Clinton was President. Given that we know that Barack Obama is in fact President now, do you believe the NYT to have been lying in 1994?

[ajb]

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The NYT is generally in opposition to welfare reform. If it is so bad as to deserve mention in the Times, then it must be absolutely terrible. Generally when a source is biased the other way, you can expect that source to be reliable on this issue.

Go back and read your article. It says that in 1991 federal administrative costs for Medicaid, food stamps and AFDC combined were $4.9 billion, while total federal expenditures on these three programs were $79 billion. That adds up to administrative costs of about 6.2%.
Maybe you misplaced a decimal point during your time travel?

[ajb]

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Actual quotation from my textbook on 'assessing historical reliability'.

Does that same textbook advocate reading only sources that are from twenty years prior to the events in question, then arbitrarily multiplying their numbers by ten?
You do realize that your methodology here is:
1. Make a claim about the present.
2. Find an article from the New York Times from twenty years ago that does not support your claim, even if that claim were being made about twenty years ago.
3. Say that the New York Times has a liberal bias, so that their refutation of your claim actually constitutes support for your claim.

Using this methodology, it's child's play to prove that the moon is made of green cheese. After all, there are tons of articles from the New York Times in 1994 which don't say that the moon is made of green cheese, and everybody knows that the liberal media is in bed with junk liberal science. So clearly, it follows that the moon is made of green cheese.