<\/p>\n
Paul Buchheit Because of irresponsible reporting by conservative<\/a> sources<\/a>, many Americans have been led to believe that social programs are bankrupting our nation. The mainstream media fawningly concurs, with statements like this from USA Today<\/a>: \u201cThe massive deficits\u2026[and] chronic underfunding\u2026are largely the result of Washington\u2019s habit of committing too much money to benefit programs.\u201d States are now beginning to attack<\/a> imagined safety net abuses, such as the use of food stamp funds to pay for fortune tellers and pleasure cruises<\/a>.<\/p>\n But hungry people rarely waste their modest benefits<\/a>, and most are eager to work to support their households. Almost three-quarters<\/a> of those enrolled in food stamps and other social programs are members of working families. And according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a>, only 1 cent of every SNAP dollar is used fraudulently.<\/p>\n The real threat is the array of entitlements demanded by the very rich. As they get richer, they\u2019re gradually bankrupting the greater part of America, the middle and lower classes. The followingannual<\/i><\/b> numbers may help to put our country\u2019s expenses and benefits in perspective.<\/p>\n The Safety Net: $370 Billion<\/b><\/p>\n The 2014 safety net<\/a> (non-medical) included the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), WIC (Women, Infants, Children), Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Education & Training, and Housing. These few programs, collectively termed \u201cwelfare\u201d by those fortunate enough to survive without them, amount to a lot less than the $1 trillion per year<\/a> publicized by the conservative press.<\/p>\n Social Security: $863 Billion<\/b><\/p>\n The threat of \u201centitlement,\u201d in the case of Social Security, is more properly defined as an \u201cearned benefit.\u201d Social Security<\/a> is the major source of income for most of the elderly, who have paid for it. As of 2010, according to the Urban Institute<\/a>, the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in.<\/p>\n Tax Avoidance: $2,200 Billion<\/b><\/p>\n That\u2019s $2.2 trillion<\/a> in tax expenditures, tax underpayments, tax havens, and corporate nonpayment. It is estimated that two-thirds of tax breaks accrue to the top quintile<\/a> of taxpayers.<\/p>\n Investment Gains: $5,000 Billion<\/b><\/p>\n That\u2019s $5 trillion dollars a year, the annual amount gained<\/a> in U.S. wealth from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2014. In the six years since the recession, for every $1 of safety net costs, $10 innew wealth<\/a><\/i><\/b> went to the richest 10%.<\/p>\n Investment income welfare for the well-to-do appears in the form of capital gains tax breaks, which mean zero taxes<\/i><\/b> on deferred investment gains, and zero taxes<\/i><\/b> for most of the investment gains passed along to descendants<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most Extreme: 14 Billionaires vs. 46 Million Hungry Americans<\/b><\/p>\n America\u2019s 14 richest individuals made more<\/a> from their investments last year than the $80 billion<\/a> provided for people in need<\/a> of food.<\/p>\n Clearly, conservative sources don\u2019t tell us the full story. They dwell on the cost of the safety net, emphasizing its accumulating total over several years, while stubbornly ignoring the real problem.<\/p>\n The super-rich feel they deserve all the tax breaks and the accumulation of wealth from our nation\u2019s many years of productivity.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the true threat of entitlement.<\/p>\n \u00a0Paul Buchheit is a writer for progressive publications and the founder and developer of social justice and educational web sites, among them UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, and RappingHistory.org.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Buchheit RINF Alternative News Because of irresponsible reporting by conservative sources, many Americans have been led to believe that social programs are bankrupting our nation. The mainstream media fawningly concurs, with statements like this from USA Today: \u201cThe massive deficits\u2026[and] chronic underfunding\u2026are largely the result of Washington\u2019s habit of committing too much money […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-147433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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