US Government Budget

[Dallane]

So funny to see Cleaty have another melt down and deny facts when they are directly thrown at his face.

[Inotdead]

Claeyt is the kind of person who once believed that 2x2=5 wont accept the truth, no matter what evidence you throw at him, and will cite uncredible sources that say 2x2=6 and 2x2=3 as the ones that prove his point.

[Darwoth]

claeyt knows he is full of **** in all of his arguments, his goal is not to try and convince anyone he is right because he simply is not and he knows that, his goal is to spew endless volumes of ***** so that you are forced to refute his nonsense or defend yourself against his allegations (racist, nazi, insane, beat up for your lunch money etc) instead of dispelling his world view.

this is why he literally does the exact same thing every thread, say there is a list of ten "topics" he starts at the top with #1 and gets shot down, then instead of reading, responding or defending topic 1 any longer he creates a different argument using topic #2 as his exit strategy, this cycle repeats until the list is complete and then he starts at #1 again.

again the goal is not to ever have a debate, he can not win one because his points do not hold merit and his world view does not stand up to scrutiny. the goal is to keep you occupied responding to him from a defensive posture so that you can not attack his idiotic beliefs.

all liberals are like this, that is why the first thing they do is scream racist. nazi. fascist, tyrant etc

the only way to win with a moron like this is to not play their game and to not waste your time compiling an actual argument but laugh at them instead

rational arguments are for the fencesitters that are not educated on the issues. claeyt however is a firmly entrenched communist. he does not care that 65% of the budget goes to social programs as that is exactly what he wants and more.

[Claeyt]

People should not have to count on their children to take care of them. Currently 47% of women do not have children and 75% of Americans do not have children at retirement. This has been stable for years. That means 25% of retired adults do not have children to take care of them.

And in that case, they didn't spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars that children cost and should have been able to save a great deal more for retirement, although the large percent of taxes way pay, including the extra amounts for being single and even more for not having kids, does put a crimp in that.

...and what if poverty does not allow them to save. What if the kids poverty doesn't allow them to spend the thousands to hire a care taker or the ability to take off work to care for their elderly invalid parent.

There would be literally thousands of elderly homeless people dying daily or living in such filthy charity homes that our collective soul would be broken just seeing it. This is why we created social security and medicare, because there will always be someone who falls through the cracks and that someone in the case of America without social security would be thousands upon thousands of poor elderly people.

We have seen America without social security and it was so horrifying we had to create social security and medicare.

They are not "some people paying someone else's medical bills." That is a lie. They are ALL of us, paying in to a basic level of medical care and social poverty prevention programs for ALL of us.

Which some of us never qualify to get. It doesn't matter how you try to twist it, some people pay and others receive. It's certainly not an HSA.

No, some people do not pay, and others receive. That is a lie. Everyone qualifies for some social security and medicare. Even if you are rich enough that you payed more into them than you will probably receive, and you don't need them, you will also have the assurance that if you lose everything for whatever reason you will still receive basic retirement and medical care.

I saw housing incentives in your graph and thought you included them in your definition of "welfare". You didn't really say what you put into "Welfare". You just said 65% and left it there without specifics. Did you put Agriculture into along with other "public" stuff? It seems like you did. You also say you included other economic benefits created to help the economy such as Unemployment training into 'welfare'.

Well geez, what did you do, skip to the end? You keep making these stupid assumptions and it's becoming more and more clear you didn't even bother to read anything but the last paragraph. I put a good deal of effort into that 9 Word document pages worth of post. If you're going to argue about it, at least do the courtesy of reading it. Better yet, take a look at the original document your own damn self, or is actually sitting down and taking the time to read and comprehend and think too taxing for your thoroughly scrub-washed brain?

I read all of it. I'm not going to go into the original document, I'll instead just vote for the people I trust to build the next budget.

All I'm saying is that

1) you included Social Security and Medicare as 'Welfare' even though they are payroll taxes. This shows a conservative bias on your part to put them there as they are not 'Welfare' in my opinion or in the opinoin of the nation.

2) you seem to have included several economic programs, such as unemployment, training, ag subsidies and some other things that again show a political bias. I do not think you are being politically neutral in your assessment of what is considered "Welfare".

Finally nowhere did you itemize what you put into "welfare type programs". You did combine whole sections of the budget into groups that you may have considered "Welfare" but which the majority of Americans don't consider welfare. This was political bias on your part.

[TotalyMeow]

We have seen America without social security and it was so horrifying we had to create social security and medicare.

Have we? Have you seen America before 1934? I know I'm not old enough. I've read history about it, but nowhere have I seen any account of 'horrifying en mass starvation of elderly'. And if such a thing is possible, it's not because we need Social Security, it's because we need to change our society and the way we behave towards the older generations.

No, some people do not pay, and others receive. That is a lie. Everyone qualifies for some social security and medicare. Even if you are rich enough that you payed more into them than you will probably receive, and you don't need them, you will also have the assurance that if you lose everything for whatever reason you will still receive basic retirement and medical care.

This is where you are mistaken. Social Security is not a trust, you have no right to it and it can be denied to you. Congress can also change the Social Security laws as ANY time and reduce or remove what you are getting as an elderly person no matter how much you paid in when you were working.

1) you included Social Security and Medicare as 'Welfare' even though they are payroll taxes. This shows a conservative bias on your part to put them there as they are not 'Welfare' in my opinion or in the opinoin of the nation.

It's the opinion of the government though (and whatever part of the nation who know the definition of 'welfare') that Social Security is welfare. Also, I'm not sure how 'payroll taxes' is a magic phrase that somehow changes things. The government actually calls it 'income tax' when referring to people and 'excise tax based on income' when referring to the corporate contribution. Go read the Social Security Act of 1935, I dare you. Here's the preamble:

The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Also, Helvering vs Davis, a court decision made in 1937, determined that the Social Security Act was not a violation of the tenth amendment because it is covered in section 1 article 8. Speaking of which, here is the first part of that:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It then goes on to talk about establishing a post office and a few other things which I categorized as 'government' or 'public' in my pie chart, so the constitution agrees with my assessment that these things are welfare.

2) you seem to have included several economic programs, such as unemployment, training, ag subsidies and some other things that again show a political bias. I do not think you are being politically neutral in your assessment of what is considered "Welfare".

Finally nowhere did you itemize what you put into "welfare type programs". You did combine whole sections of the budget into groups that you may have considered "Welfare" but which the majority of Americans don't consider welfare. This was political bias on your part.

Unemployment and government sponsorship of retraining ARE welfare and if you actually look at the budget they are all labeled as being 'aid' or 'assistance' or some other variation of 'welfare'. I put agriculture subsidies in 'public'. I actually biased things to a more 'Cleayt friendly' leaning in that I put some things into Defense that probably shouldn't be there, some actual welfare stuff in public, etc., already listed those. I did, in fact, itemize it, which is why I think you didn't read it. Open the spoilers and read them.

I wish you'd stop talking about the 'Majority of Americans' like that. You have nothing to back that statement up, it's a flat out lie.

[Dallane]

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[saltmummy]

The sad thing is, everyone should learn this stuff in school. I wish I had. The economics class I took in college taught me less about government spending than I just learned in a couple days of my own research, and the HS civics class was a joke made up mostly of useless 'book reports' of the news.

Rereading through this thread while waiting for installs to finish and I spotted this. At least you got economics, as much of a joke as they were. My economics class only taught us about "green" chocolate chips and renewable energy. My economics teacher didn't know the difference between the economy and ecology. A lot of "green living" stuff was taught. Instead of learning useful information, I had to endure a lot of "meat is murder!" and "solar panels are the future!" and "I was into wind power before it was cool!" The only thing I really learned, was that some people are actually dead in the brain enough to pay ten bucks for a small bag of chocolate chips simply because they think it can buy away their guilt over people being sprayed with pesticides half a world away.

Also noticed while rereading this and other threads, that Meow an Darwoth can have differing viewpoints but still manage to keep things calm and cordial, but when claeyt joins in it turns into a shouting match.

[TotalyMeow]

The only thing I really learned, was that some people are actually dead in the brain enough to pay ten bucks for a small bag of chocolate chips simply because they think it can buy away their guilt over people being sprayed with pesticides half a world away.

The impulse is a good one though. Most people are charitable by nature. Sharing a post on Facebook to 'raise awareness' for something people are already aware of or buying a meaningless bag of chocolate might be a stupid thing to do and only satisfy a need to feel like they're helping while not actually helping, but it goes to show that people do want to help those who need it. It's one of the reasons why I say we don't need to spend so much tax money on welfare programs. Such things would be much more efficiently run and effective if privatized.

[Darwoth]

Such things would be much more efficiently run and effective if privatized.

100% there have been many times i have dumped several hundred dollars of quality stuff off at a goodwill, entire grocery trips of food at churches during christmas/thanksgiving time and so on and i am not a rarity or even close to what i have seen others do (donating entire vehicles and so on). back east every deer season hunters would butcher their kills and donate the meat to a small 4h affiliated program we had that immediately processed/preserved it and gave it to dirt poor families and helped them get through, a used car dealer that only had enough room on his lot for about 12 cars always made a point to have a few 800 or less dollar trucks he would personally invest his own time into fixing up and then sold at or slightly below cost to help the poor families out with it being clear those cars were not for the normal customer, he also made sure any kid that wanted to learn how to work on **** knew they were welcome at his shop, all summer long there was always a half dozen little turds running around learning useful skills that would help them all through life and having a positive influence watch over them.

that is america and that is how you help folks, not by stealing their ***** money in a communist ploy for "social justice" the way claeyt would like, that is how you make it so nobody has the means to help anyone.

[Dallane]

that is america and that is how you help folks, not by stealing their ***** money in a communist ploy for "social justice" the way claeyt would like, that is how you make it so nobody has the means to help anyone.

Up coming paycheck will be 1k in taxes since I worked overtime. I can't afford to help anyone but myself with this ****.