Obama's approach - 'Welfare-spending madness'

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 6/24/2009 8:35:00 AM

A leading expert on welfare reform says President Obama's massive increases in every form of welfare spending are designed to be a "foot in the door" for a permanent policy to "spread the wealth and tax future generations to provide larger welfare today."

A Wall Street Journal survey finds that welfare caseloads have increased from last year in 23 of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88 percent of the nation's total population. The article notes that the biggest increases are occurring in states with some of the worst jobless rates -- Oregon (up 27% from last year), South Carolina (up 23%), and California (up 10%). "As more people run out of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap," states WSJ.

Robert Rector, senior research fellow of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, says even though the welfare program is supposed to require work in exchange for benefits, only 15 percent of the cases in the system nationwide have a parent who is engaged in some type of work or work preparation activity.

"Welfare reform is effectively dead -- and the Obama administration is driving a stake through its chest," says Rector. "And what we can expect to see are record ongoing increases in welfare spending for the foreseeable future."

Rector notes the Obama administration has increased welfare spending for the poor -- which includes cash, food, housing, and medical services -- by over $300 billion this year and next year combined. That is six times the rate of increase that has ever occurred in any previous recession.

"We are in the midst of a kind of welfare-spending madness in which total welfare spending will approach $10 trillion over the next decade," says the welfare expert. "We've never done anything like that as a nation, and we really can't afford it."

Rector says even though the U.S. spent more than $700 billion on welfare for poor and low-income people last year (not including Social Security or Medicare), equaling about $20,000 for each poor person, President Obama plans to dramatically ramp up that spending in the years to come.

see the video at the link

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Defa ... ?id=578936