“Republicans Hate Poor People:” County GOP apologizes for social media post

[Famous Mortimer]

Worded unbelievably badly, but the point itself (that Democrats have a political interest in keeping people poor) is not entirely false.

Lol, yes it is. Republicans despise the poor and want to do nothing to actually help them become successful. Just tell them to work harder and pull themselves up by the bootstraps, no actual help.

That is simply not true. Democratic welfare policies have clearly been a failure. We've spent trillions of dollars since LBJ's war on poverty was launched, and yet today the poverty rate is nearly the exact same. That's because the current welfare system essentially locks people in poverty, disincentivizes marriage (a proven alleviator of poverty), and discourages people from finding work by drastically cutting benefits as soon as people get a job (thus making work an economically unsound decision). If you really think the solution for poverty is throwing money at the same failed policies, you're crazy.

(Most) Republicans don't blame, or by any means despise, the poor for the poverty we see and recognize that it's a symptom of failed governmental policy.

I believe the best way to help alleviate poverty is to restructure the welfare system to encourage marriage, slow the decrease of benefits after employment is found, provide educational choice to poor parents so their children aren't locked in failing schools, encourage apprenticeships and more effective job training programs, and free up entrepreneurs from excessive taxes and regulations so they can hire more people (Thank you GOP).

Stop the smears and realize that there's no kindness to be found in supporting policies that keep people trapped in poverty.

Good comment. Too bad no one will listen. Especially not Republicans. As rightly observe the problem with welfare is that we take it away when people get a job or form a joint household. So the solution actually is MORE WELFARE, to give people welfare regardless of income or marriage status, ie a guaranteed basic income. The GOP will never get behind that. They only want to cut welfare. The Democrats will probably never get behind it either though, since they believe any program which gives to people regardless of circumstances, rather than rewarding them for being failures or rewarding them for being non-white, is inherently problematic. We're just screwed.

I don't think the solution is more welfare but rather a far slower reduction in benefits once people find employment. The point of welfare should be to eliminate the need for its own existence. I do think Republican politicians attack the problem backwards. We should focus on the marriage incenvtives, work encentives, job training, and educational opportunity FIRST and then make cuts to the system once people have started to get themselves out of poverty. Cuts should be the final step, not the first.

You're being vague. "Cuts should be the final step" Cuts to the program? Or cuts to personal benefits? I agree with your implication that cuts to personal benefits should come later but that means people get benefits for longer, ie more welfare will be given out by the government. Incentivizing good behavior like family formation and getting a job is simply not compatible with GOP orthodoxy because the GOP does not believe the government should offer positive incentives ever. Democrats = incentives to failure/Republicans = no incentives one way or the other.

[TPIG]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

The tax cuts for sole proprietorships, partnerships, etc. were far lower than the cuts for corporations, even though corporationls are only about 20% of businesses

[Famous Mortimer]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

Big corporations provide better pay and more stability than small businesses. They also tend to provide better service to customers as well. Support for small business over big business on both the left and right is based on sentimentality more than anything else. Also, it's just not economically feasible to have everyone have their own businesses, unless you are advocating for the Democratic version of the future where the only jobs are food trucks and everyone is just selling tacos to each other and there's no other economic activity.

[TPIG]

Worded unbelievably badly, but the point itself (that Democrats have a political interest in keeping people poor) is not entirely false.

Lol, yes it is. Republicans despise the poor and want to do nothing to actually help them become successful. Just tell them to work harder and pull themselves up by the bootstraps, no actual help.

That is simply not true. Democratic welfare policies have clearly been a failure. We've spent trillions of dollars since LBJ's war on poverty was launched, and yet today the poverty rate is nearly the exact same. That's because the current welfare system essentially locks people in poverty, disincentivizes marriage (a proven alleviator of poverty), and discourages people from finding work by drastically cutting benefits as soon as people get a job (thus making work an economically unsound decision). If you really think the solution for poverty is throwing money at the same failed policies, you're crazy.

(Most) Republicans don't blame, or by any means despise, the poor for the poverty we see and recognize that it's a symptom of failed governmental policy.

I believe the best way to help alleviate poverty is to restructure the welfare system to encourage marriage, slow the decrease of benefits after employment is found, provide educational choice to poor parents so their children aren't locked in failing schools, encourage apprenticeships and more effective job training programs, and free up entrepreneurs from excessive taxes and regulations so they can hire more people (Thank you GOP).

Stop the smears and realize that there's no kindness to be found in supporting policies that keep people trapped in poverty.

Good comment. Too bad no one will listen. Especially not Republicans. As rightly observe the problem with welfare is that we take it away when people get a job or form a joint household. So the solution actually is MORE WELFARE, to give people welfare regardless of income or marriage status, ie a guaranteed basic income. The GOP will never get behind that. They only want to cut welfare. The Democrats will probably never get behind it either though, since they believe any program which gives to people regardless of circumstances, rather than rewarding them for being failures or rewarding them for being non-white, is inherently problematic. We're just screwed.

I don't think the solution is more welfare but rather a far slower reduction in benefits once people find employment. The point of welfare should be to eliminate the need for its own existence. I do think Republican politicians attack the problem backwards. We should focus on the marriage incenvtives, work encentives, job training, and educational opportunity FIRST and then make cuts to the system once people have started to get themselves out of poverty. Cuts should be the final step, not the first.

You're being vague. "Cuts should be the final step" Cuts to the program? Or cuts to personal benefits? I agree with your implication that cuts to personal benefits should come later but that means people get benefits for longer, ie more welfare will be given out by the government. Incentivizing good behavior like family formation and getting a job is simply not compatible with GOP orthodoxy because the GOP does not believe the government should offer positive incentives ever. Democrats = incentives to failure/Republicans = no incentives one way or the other.

I meant cuts to personal benefits. Also, I disagree with your assertion about Republicans not accepting any positives incentives. The recent tax reform reduced the marriage penalty for most earners and of course increased the child tax credit. Those are positive incentives. With welfare policies, we're already spending the money, we just need to restructure HOW it's being spent.

[TPIG]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

The tax cuts for sole proprietorships, partnerships, etc. were far lower than the cuts for corporations, even though corporationls are only about 20% of businesses

So you agree with me that the tax cuts should have been even bigger?

[Famous Mortimer]

Worded unbelievably badly, but the point itself (that Democrats have a political interest in keeping people poor) is not entirely false.

Lol, yes it is. Republicans despise the poor and want to do nothing to actually help them become successful. Just tell them to work harder and pull themselves up by the bootstraps, no actual help.

That is simply not true. Democratic welfare policies have clearly been a failure. We've spent trillions of dollars since LBJ's war on poverty was launched, and yet today the poverty rate is nearly the exact same. That's because the current welfare system essentially locks people in poverty, disincentivizes marriage (a proven alleviator of poverty), and discourages people from finding work by drastically cutting benefits as soon as people get a job (thus making work an economically unsound decision). If you really think the solution for poverty is throwing money at the same failed policies, you're crazy.

(Most) Republicans don't blame, or by any means despise, the poor for the poverty we see and recognize that it's a symptom of failed governmental policy.

I believe the best way to help alleviate poverty is to restructure the welfare system to encourage marriage, slow the decrease of benefits after employment is found, provide educational choice to poor parents so their children aren't locked in failing schools, encourage apprenticeships and more effective job training programs, and free up entrepreneurs from excessive taxes and regulations so they can hire more people (Thank you GOP).

Stop the smears and realize that there's no kindness to be found in supporting policies that keep people trapped in poverty.

Good comment. Too bad no one will listen. Especially not Republicans. As rightly observe the problem with welfare is that we take it away when people get a job or form a joint household. So the solution actually is MORE WELFARE, to give people welfare regardless of income or marriage status, ie a guaranteed basic income. The GOP will never get behind that. They only want to cut welfare. The Democrats will probably never get behind it either though, since they believe any program which gives to people regardless of circumstances, rather than rewarding them for being failures or rewarding them for being non-white, is inherently problematic. We're just screwed.

I don't think the solution is more welfare but rather a far slower reduction in benefits once people find employment. The point of welfare should be to eliminate the need for its own existence. I do think Republican politicians attack the problem backwards. We should focus on the marriage incenvtives, work encentives, job training, and educational opportunity FIRST and then make cuts to the system once people have started to get themselves out of poverty. Cuts should be the final step, not the first.

You're being vague. "Cuts should be the final step" Cuts to the program? Or cuts to personal benefits? I agree with your implication that cuts to personal benefits should come later but that means people get benefits for longer, ie more welfare will be given out by the government. Incentivizing good behavior like family formation and getting a job is simply not compatible with GOP orthodoxy because the GOP does not believe the government should offer positive incentives ever. Democrats = incentives to failure/Republicans = no incentives one way or the other.

I meant cuts to personal benefits. Also, I disagree with your assertion about Republicans not accepting any positives incentives. The recent tax reform reduced the marriage penalty for most earners and of course increased the child tax credit. Those are positive incentives. With welfare policies, we're already spending the money, we just need to restructure HOW it's being spent.

Well the Child Tax Credit goes to people who have children out of wedlock too so it's not really incentivizing positive behavior.  It's a typical Democratic welfare program which rewards people for messing up their lives. The Republicans support it because they need some bad welfare programs to exist so they can point them as evidence that welfare is unconditionally bad.

[Famous Mortimer]

Democrats support means tested welfare because they fetishize failure. Republicans support means tested welfare (although not as enthusiastically as Democrats) because they want welfare to be associated with failure.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

The tax cuts for sole proprietorships, partnerships, etc. were far lower than the cuts for corporations, even though corporationls are only about 20% of businesses

So you agree with me that the tax cuts should have been even bigger?

Depends

Capital gains tax should be greatly increased so Jim can't make more than a person who works 12 hours a day while naked eating cheetos off his belly button just cuz he was lucky enough to be passed down wealth by his papa

[TPIG]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

Big corporations provide better pay and more stability than small businesses. They also tend to provide better service to customers as well. Support for small business over big business on both the left and right is based on sentimentality more than anything else. Also, it's just not economically feasible to have everyone have their own businesses, unless you are advocating for the Democratic version of the future where the only jobs are food trucks and everyone is just selling tacos to each other and there's no other economic activity.

I'd say support for small business comes from the fact that they employ 120 million people, create 2/3rds of new jobs, and contribute 9 trillion dollars to America's GDP. Any effective reform of business taxation has to focus on small business; it's in no way simply based on sentimentality.

[Famous Mortimer]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

Big corporations provide better pay and more stability than small businesses. They also tend to provide better service to customers as well. Support for small business over big business on both the left and right is based on sentimentality more than anything else. Also, it's just not economically feasible to have everyone have their own businesses, unless you are advocating for the Democratic version of the future where the only jobs are food trucks and everyone is just selling tacos to each other and there's no other economic activity.

I'd say support for small business comes from the fact that they employ 120 million people, create 2/3rds of new jobs, and contribute 9 trillion dollars to America's GDP. Any effective reform of business taxation has to focus on small business; it's in no way simply based on sentimentality.

Big businesses would step in to fill the void if those small businesses didn't exist, and they would likely do a better job doing what the small businesses were doing in most cases.

[TPIG]

Also rofl at "give business more opportunities". Seriously? They've been doing perfectly fine; the provlem is they give dividends to their  shareholders before their workers.

Really? Does that apply to the enormous number of small businesses who aren't public (thus having no shareholders) but were paying the top individual rate before tax reform? Encouraging small business growth is a great way to provide more opportunity to the economically disadvantaged.

Big corporations provide better pay and more stability than small businesses. They also tend to provide better service to customers as well. Support for small business over big business on both the left and right is based on sentimentality more than anything else. Also, it's just not economically feasible to have everyone have their own businesses, unless you are advocating for the Democratic version of the future where the only jobs are food trucks and everyone is just selling tacos to each other and there's no other economic activity.

I'd say support for small business comes from the fact that they employ 120 million people, create 2/3rds of new jobs, and contribute 9 trillion dollars to America's GDP. Any effective reform of business taxation has to focus on small business; it's in no way simply based on sentimentality.

Big businesses would step in to fill the void if those small businesses didn't exist, and they would likely do a better job doing what the small businesses were doing in most cases.

Considering there are 28 million small businesses in the US, of which 22 million are individually owned (without any other employees), it would be incredibly inefficient for a few big businesses to absorb these businesses and still provide their services (imagine the overhead). Yes, increased firm size leads to greater ability for specialization and more efficiency up to a point, after which that efficiency stalls and inefficiencies creep in (look at long run average cost curves). Either way, that's obviously not going to happen, and policy should focus on the business environment as it currently is.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I believe we need a very big increase in the EITC (minimum $100 billion more a year).

[TPIG]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

[OSR stands with Israel]

The poverty rate did decline during the first few years of the War on Poverty. However, funding for the program was siphoned off by the need to pay for the Vietnam War. After the 1973 oil crisis, the War on Poverty was abandoned.

The war on poverty stopped working in the early 70s? That probably has something to do with the fact that that was when we started bringing in massive numbers of poor people from the third world each year, ensuring that even if the poor were somehow lifted out of poverty, they would be replaced (but more likely joined) by new impoverished people.

Most immigrants from Asian Countries are upper middle class

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

Tbf, $0.25 bought you a gallon of milk a few decades ago

Also, the aging of baby boomers who are an increasingly large % of the population makes SS, Medicare, and even Medicaid higher.

Also notice how welfare spending went down for a while under Obama but skyrocketed under Bush

[Bojack Horseman]

It's hilarious that anyone thinks socially Darwinist policies even remotely help the poor. The invisible hand of free market capitalism slaps poor people in the face. The real cause of poverty and wage stagnation is the destruction of unions that began in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.

Back in the 1950s, 1960s, and even in the 1970s when America was unionized, the middle class was far stronger and more attainable for people in poverty. Here in Michigan, you could walk into the middle class overnight by graduating high school and hiring into Buick in Flint, Oldsmobile in Lansing, or Chevrolet in Detroit. After you'd worked there for 25 years, you then could retire with a pension.

The union dream wasn't just limited to the auto industry. Unions made what are today considered menial jobs livable and this lifted millions of people out of poverty. But then we elected Reagan and states started enacting right-to-work laws, and the whole thing went to crap.

It's a testament to the stupidity of the American voter that millions of people actually believe that giving huge tax giveaways to the rich will magically lift people out of poverty. Conservative economics only pushes people further into poverty, as it reduces the amount of wealth left available for anyone other than the richest 1%. It's even sadder that evangelicals vote against their own economic interest BUHCUZ MUH ABORTION!!!!

Combine this with the reduction in welfare benefits, the destruction of public education, and the disinvestment (and resulting rise in cost of) in higher education, the Republican Party has effectively eliminated any possibility of a poor person getting out of poverty, except maybe by winning the lottery.

As our politicians continue to pursue these neoliberal anti-working and middle class policies, the poor and middle class will continue to stay on this economic treadmill. As the wealth imbalance grows and the majority of the working people face $3,000/month rents and $11/hour wages, hopefully there will be riots in the streets and a massive political revolution to take our country back to the policies of the New Deal and FDR.

[UncleSam]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

Tbf, $0.25 bought you a gallon of milk a few decades ago

Also, the aging of baby boomers who are an increasingly large % of the population makes SS, Medicare, and even Medicaid higher.

Also notice how welfare spending went down for a while under Obama but skyrocketed under Bush

My understanding of that chart is that everything is in 2014 dollars, so that .25 in 1970 would be 10$ or whatever on the chart. In other words, inflation is taken into account.

I did not create the chart or find it however, so I'm not sure on that. I think that it's adjusted for inflation and per capita effects based on the title, however.

[TPIG]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

Tbf, $0.25 bought you a gallon of milk a few decades ago

Also, the aging of baby boomers who are an increasingly large % of the population makes SS, Medicare, and even Medicaid higher.

Also notice how welfare spending went down for a while under Obama but skyrocketed under Bush

Well, it's not just SS, Medicare and Medicaid that have seen increased spending.

It's also -

Foodstamps...


School lunches -


Federal Housing Assistance...



...and a whole host of others. To claim that the problem is programs cuts is simply wrong...

[fluffypanther19]

Worded unbelievably badly, but the point itself (that Democrats have a political interest in keeping people poor) is not entirely false.

Lol, yes it is. Republicans despise the poor and want to do nothing to actually help them become successful. Just tell them to work harder and pull themselves up by the bootstraps, no actual help.

That is simply not true. Democratic welfare policies have clearly been a failure. We've spent trillions of dollars since LBJ's war on poverty was launched, and yet today the poverty rate is nearly the exact same. That's because the current welfare system essentially locks people in poverty, disincentivizes marriage (a proven alleviator of poverty), and discourages people from finding work by drastically cutting benefits as soon as people get a job (thus making work an economically unsound decision). If you really think the solution for poverty is throwing money at the same failed policies, you're crazy.

(Most) Republicans don't blame, or by any means despise, the poor for the poverty we see and recognize that it's a symptom of failed governmental policy.

I believe the best way to help alleviate poverty is to restructure the welfare system to encourage marriage, slow the decrease of benefits after employment is found, provide educational choice to poor parents so their children aren't locked in failing schools, encourage apprenticeships and more effective job training programs, and free up entrepreneurs from excessive taxes and regulations so they can hire more people (Thank you GOP).

Stop the smears and realize that there's no kindness to be found in supporting policies that keep people trapped in poverty.

LOL! Clueless kid.

What a great, well thought-out response.

Going to guarantee you're an upper middle class white guy who has no contact with poor people and no real experiences on how the system as it is now actually barely keeps people above water (most are still below it), so yes, clueless child.

Or a lower-middle class white guy with a single mom who provides for her kids paycheck to paycheck, but sure, act like you know me...

I lived in Atlanta before college and attended a school where a third of the students were refugees and 70% were on free and reduced lunch. But again, PLEASE, tell me how much you know about my life...

Then it's amazing how little you know, that's sad kid.

you aren't defending your points well, attacking this guy's ideas based on what you assume he knows or doesn't know is a stupid tactic.

yeah, I don't completely agree with that conservative guy, but master Jedi is just being a little sh!t here

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Wow, an honest conservative!

Right-wing mind in a nutshell. "They" (Democrats) are bad, "we" (GOP) are good.

Literally how competitive social formations work.

[Ban my account ffs!]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

I suspect this takes into account social welfare items that are not typically associated with "welfare" when people talk about it.  But I can't be sure.

What I can be sure of, however, is that it does not take into account things that rise faster than inflation like medical costs and housing costs.  

Here's a graph that is sad and alarming:  The impact of welfare reform for impoverished children in the U.S. has been very bad.

[TPIG]

We've cut welfare a lot since the great society, so no wonder poverty rates are about the same.

Not to mention muh prosperty bible fails very hard when productivity has massively increased yet compensation is only slightly higher. These financial and tech firms are screwing over workers and are getting far more money than they deserve. These guys dont deserve 30 times the pay of a teacher just because they got lucky with some financial investment.

I am an upper middle class guy that gets over $50k a year by doing nothing but puttinng stocks in a mutual fund. This sh**t is just completely unfair and shouldn't happen, but that is the fcked up societ thatConservativeGuy jerks off too.

Whew, almost missed this one...
 
Please tell me about these great cuts to welfare spending...

I suspect this takes into account social welfare items that are not typically associated with "welfare" when people talk about it.  But I can't be sure.

What I can be sure of, however, is that it does not take into account things that rise faster than inflation like medical costs and housing costs.  

Here's a graph that is sad and alarming:  The impact of welfare reform for impoverished children in the U.S. has been very bad.

Without additional information, all this graph tells me is that less children are using this particular program (which you state correctly was restructured with the '96 welfare reform). I will say though, I disagree with the block grant structure of TANF and think that, with this particular program, it makes more sense to have one Federal standard (with looser standards than some of the current state policies) thus making sure families in emergency situations are able to get assistance.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Wow, an honest conservative! At least he's honest about their social Darwinism. If someone's poor, obviously there's something wrong with them, not the capitalist system.

Prosperity gospel - its a cancer on human morality.

[Ban my account ffs!]

This is the federal cash welfare program.  To buy things like soap, shoes, clothes, toilet paper, transportation.



$2/person/day.  That's $180/month for a single mother with two children.  And there's a good chance she doesn't qualify anyway.

During the recession there grew a new class of people in America:  Those who survive on nothing but food stamps.  They stitch together everything else due to family help or drawing down their savings.

I believe Republicans are happy with this situation.  They are happy to see the indigent suffer their "indignity".

Democrats get enraged by this.  Not because the poor f**ker will vote for them (they almost certainly wont vote at all)... but because of the injustice enacted at all levels of government over the past few decades by Republicans and their complicit Democratic helpers in ensuring the country calcifies into a stratified pile of sh**t.