The problem I have debating people on welfare and other issues is well frankly, a lot of people are just incredibly ignorant. They just espouse platitudes without knowing what the hell they're talking about. It's a bit frustrating. No one expects everyone to be experts on what they choose to write about. But often times it's obvious that they haven't taken even a serious glance at the facts behind the issue they speak of. I don't mean "facts" as in from some left-wing or right-wing website. I mean the actual facts.

Al Sharpton, on 20/20 publicly claimed that the rich (top 5%) don't even pay for 2% of the taxes. Sadly, he's typical of the people who want to raise taxes on "the wealthy". It would have only taken him a few minutes to learn that the top 5% of income earners pay 54% of the federal income taxes. But he, like many Americans who talk about things like "corporate welfare" and "tax cuts for the rich" are just mouthing things they've heard from without bothering to look it up.

The left-wing whining and claims have done their job though. Since the 1960s, contrary to claims by right-wing radio, the left has won. The right was defeated utterly. We now spend most of our federal budget giving money to other people. Job training programs? We got them. Food delivered to the poor? Did it. Oh, but that wasn't enough. So it was upgraded to food stamps. Food stamps can't be used as cash? No problem, a certain percent can now be received as cash. Widen the scope of these programs so that millions of Americans qualify for it? No problem. Subsidized housing for those who make significantly less than the mean income? Here you go.

And what is the lesson? The people who demand we do more for the poor continue to claim we don't do enough. They will often not even acknowledge what we actualy do do.

"Oh we don't spend enough to help the poor." We sure the hell do. It's easy for people who either pay no or little federal taxes to bitch and moan about how nice it would be for other people to pay more, but those of us who actually pay serious taxes have made it our business to look at what that money is spent on. You see, half the population of the United States pays virtually no federal income taxes. And polls have made it pretty clear that they are the ones who are the numerous  in demanding more programs for "the poor".

If 5% of the population gets food stamps, for the sake of argument, based on what we spent in 1998 just on food stamps then each man, woman, and child getting foodstamps got $3,000.  That's not $3,000 per family. That's per person. So a family of 4 on food stamps would be getting $12,000. Obviously they're not really getting that much because of the waste that is government. But in 1998 the Federal Government spent about $40 billion on food for the poor. Which means that $40 billion of our taxes were spent on it. Well, the taxes of the 60% of Americans who actually pay something to the federal government in federal income taxes. 

We also spend a similar amount on federally subsidized low income housing.  And job training? We spend billions on that too.

It makes some people feel all warm and fuzzy to care so much about the poor. There will always be poor people. You know why? Because most poor people are either disabled or are...well losers. And I say that having grown up poor.  My dad left when I was very young and my mom and I (well my mom mainly) struggled to make ends meet. She worked her way up working multiple jobs at minimum wage. No health care. No insurance. But we made it. Today she lives a middle class lifestyle. She doesn't make much still but a lifetime of living within ones means adds up. It taught me a great deal about life.  My first "job" was at 6 years old. I took out the trash in the apartment complex we lived in for the various welfare mothers in our building. I was paid 10 cents per bag. The dumpster was quite a distance away, especially to a 6 year old in the middle of winter.  Even at that age, however, I observed some things about "the poor". 1) They always managed to afford lots of smelly cigarettes. 2) They always managed to afford beer and other booze.

As a result, I don't tend to be that compassionate for most poor people. The key word is most. I have plenty of compassion for people who are truly disabled or have gotten a legitimately raw deal. My mom got a raw deal too.

But show me a chronically poor person (i.e. someone poor all their life -- and I mean actually poor as in making less than $15,000 annually) through most their life and I'll show you (statistically) someone who's either disabled or someone who's just a total loser.  People don't like that word. Loser. But in life there are winners and losers. Some people will try to turn such terms into being so relativistic as to losing all meaning. But there are losers out there. And while not all poor people are losers, most losers are poor. Losers are people who are either chronically stupid, terminally foolish, lazy, or all of the above. But it's not compassionate to admit that. We're supposed to pretend that they're somehow noble, courageous people struggling against the odds. What odds? The odds of them finishing high school without getting pregnant multiple times? The odds of them not calling in "sick" twice a week because they just didn't want to get up? The odds that they couldn't resist telling their foreman or boss or whatever what they really think of them? The odds of them recognizing that attention deficit disorder is not a disability that one should apply for federal disability aid for? You get the idea.

And since the 1960s, we've spent TRILLIONS trying to help losers. But there's only so much you can do to help losers. They will always be poor because they're losers and no amount of free hand outs to them will change that.  Give them a big check of money and they'll waste it. Give them a nice house and they'll trash it.

But I'm sure it makes many of people feel nice and good about themselves to advocate that other people should be taxed even more to pay for those losers. It makes them feel holier than thou to point at people like me and say how mean and "greedy" I am. Bear in mind, people like me actually do the paying but those people who want something for nothing are the ones arguing I'm "greedy".  What would I do if taxes were lower? I'd hire more people. That's what I do with my capital. We hire people. We give people jobs. Jobs that help them support their families. Jobs that provide additional tax revenue to the government. And the people we hire make pretty good money.  Give us back the hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes we paid last year and I'd hire another several people next year. Spread those tax cuts across the entire country, particularly in the form of corporate tax cuts and you'll see more people get hired.

But instead some of these guys would rather even more money to be thrown at the losers of society. The dumb ass 19 year old with 3 kids.  The high school drop out who can't understand why he can't get a good job.  The 30 year old career student with several meaningless degrees who can't get a real job because the job market for people with a masters in philosophy or anthropology just isn't there who bitches at how unfair life is. 

There are some people out there who are poor that got a raw deal. It's for that tiny minority of people who aren't habitually idiotic in their life decisions that I do support a social safety net. 

I don't support abolishing the social safety net.  I am simply saying that the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year at the state and federal level is more than adequate to help those who are having a rough time of things through no fault of their own. I'm willing to subsidize the lifestyles of losers to try to help the truly needy. But enough is enough. We don't need more. We're running huge deficits. If the national debt were paid off and we just had more money than we knew what to do with I'd be all for trying some experiment to reform the losers of the world. But we don't. And subsidizing the losers of the world hurts the rest of society in ways that the people who advocate more help for them recognize.

Unless those advocating these programs are willing to step up to the plate and demand that their taxes be increased further (gee, funny how those who advocate these programs never support flat tax proposals) then all they're doing is making themselves feel good at society's expense (again: people like me who pay most of the taxes don't take that money and spend it on jewels or something, we invest it back into the economy in the form of hiring more people, investing in new start-ups, etc.).

The poor will always be with us because losers will always be with us. We can't afford to do anymore more for them. We need to get our finances together to eliminate the deficit and start paying off the debt before it keeps us from being able to provide basic services.