2012 Presidential Election

[billmac91]

Funny story.

I have a peer who is based out in California who was recently promoted from an hourly wage position. Upon learning he was about to be promoted to a salary position with health benefits, he actually requested he make less that what was being offered.

Why?

Because the state currently pays for half of his living costs. By taking the salary being offered he would have lost that entitlement program money and it would not have been beneficial to him in the short-term.

Stuff like that is absolutely maddening. Actually turn down more money in salary, to take more tax payer money. Awesome.

[KI4MVP]

17,000,000 families are under poverty line and takes federal assistance. The amount the federal gov't and state gov't spends is right in the chart. It's actually really simple math. You take the amount we spend, and divide by the amount of families receiving aid. It's pretty crazy how math works...

the math is simple and yet they blow it completely. They divide all assistane (which goes to 110 million americans) by the number of families under the poverty line (which is 40 million americans). If using the wrong denominator isn't enough, they also pump up the numerator by adding in things like college aid - isn't college aid one great way to help lift a generation out of poverty? They aren't just including college aid, they are including all child development and job training programs.

How does having a "state contribution to federal welfare" column mean anything, everything else sort of shows where the money is going, this odd one instead shows where money is coming from.

[billmac91]

the math is simple and yet they blow it completely. They divide all assistane (which goes to 110 million americans) by the number of families under the poverty line (which is 40 million americans). If using the wrong denominator isn't enough, they also pump up the numerator by adding in things like college aid - isn't college aid one great way to help lift a generation out of poverty? They aren't just including college aid, they are including all child development and job training programs.

How does having a "state contribution to federal welfare" column mean anything, everything else sort of shows where the money is going, this odd one instead shows where money is coming from.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that almost 110 million Americans received some form of means-tested welfare in 2011. These figures exclude entitlements like Medicare and Social Security to which people contribute, and they refer exclusively to low-income direct and indirect financial support—such as food stamps, public housing, child care, energy assistance, direct cash aid, etc. For instance, 47 million Americans currently receive food stamps, and USDA has engaged in an aggressive outreach campaign to boost enrollment even further, arguing that “every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy… It’s the most direct stimulus you can get.” (Economic growth, however, is weaker this year than the two years prior, even as food stamp “stimulus” has reached an all-time high.)

I don't see how the mislead anyone when it clearly says 17,000,000 FAMILIES receive on average $60,000 a year in aid. And whether it is state or federal isn't really the point, IMO. The point is $60,000 is above the average salary made per household, and giving away that much in aid isn't likely to motivate anyone to go get a job. $60,000 a year for your family is pretty good reason to kick your feet up and let the gov't, at a state or federal level, take care of you.

It's Greece.

[KI4MVP]

Funny story.

I have a peer who is based out in California who was recently promoted from an hourly wage position. Upon learning he was about to be promoted to a salary position with health benefits, he actually requested he make less that what was being offered.

Why?

Because the state currently pays for half of his living costs. By taking the salary being offered he would have lost that entitlement program money and it would not have been beneficial to him in the short-term.

Stuff like that is absolutely maddening. Actually turn down more money in salary, to take more tax payer money. Awesome.

you can solve that by changing the system. Something is clearly broken when earning more money leaves you with less money. Instead of cutting him off the assistance complexly as a set threshold, taper it down as his salary increases.

[KI4MVP]

I don't see how the mislead anyone when it clearly says 17,000,000 FAMILIES receive on average $60,000 a year in aid. And whether it is state or federal isn't really the point, IMO. The point is $60,000 is above the average salary made per household, and giving away that much in aid isn't likely to motivate anyone to go get a job. $60,000 a year for your family is pretty good reason to kick your feet up and let the gov't, at a state or federal level, take care of you.

It's Greece.

it's quite misleading because it is a fact that these 17 million families don't average 60,000 in aid. 17 million families is 40 million americans. Instead of calculating the aid those 40 million americans received, they calculated the aid 110 million americans receive.

It's like dividing "the points scored by all players in the central division" by "the number of players on the cavs" and saying cavs players average 30 points per game.

[billmac91]

you can solve that by changing the system. Something is clearly broken when earning more money leaves you with less money. Instead of cutting him off the assistance complexly as a set threshold, taper it down as his salary increases.

Maybe my company should get with the state department and set that up....

[KI4MVP]

Maybe my company should get with the state department and set that up....

I didn't mean that your company should do it, I meant as a society we need to change the way this works.

[KI4MVP]

Oh come on... I really think you're just trying to troll us in this thread.

When is that chart from? 2010!

sorry, it was from 2010. I didn't notice that. It still doesn't change the fact that the first big spike is from the last Bush budget.

I also haven't heard an answer to how Romney is going to spend less while he increases spending. The only suggestion is the magical "it'll be paid for with job growth". How about we prove the job growth first and wipe out the deficit before tacking on 2 trillion in new military spending instead of setting us on the path for that added $2 trillion in new military spending and assume that jobs will grow more than enough to offset it.

[Northstar]

it's quite misleading because it is a fact that these 17 million families don't average 60,000 in aid. 17 million families is 40 million americans. Instead of calculating the aid those 40 million americans received, they calculated the aid 110 million americans receive.

It's like dividing "the points scored by all players in the central division" by "the number of players on the cavs" and saying cavs players average 30 points per game.

How is 17 million families equal to 40 million Americans? That's 2.35 people per family. Doesn't make any sense to me. I would consider a family to be 3+ people.

sorry, it was from 2010. I didn't notice that. It still doesn't change the fact that the first big spike is from the last Bush budget.

And the other three years are higher than any other year under any other president on the chart.

[bcort]

sorry, it was from 2010. I didn't notice that. It still doesn't change the fact that the first big spike is from the last Bush budget.

The GDP in 2009 was $13.8636 trillion. Federal spending was 25.2% of that, or around $3.493 trillion. Here's the kicker, the spending included $253 billion from the stimulus package. If you were to take that out, spending is 23.38% of the GDP (lower than any year Obama has been in office). So, if you want to say the 2009 budget is on Bush, don't forget to take out the stimulus package Obama signed and was added onto it.

[bcort]

How is 17 million families equal to 40 million Americans? That's 2.35 people per family. Doesn't make any sense to me. I would consider a family to be 3+ people.

My guess is you aren't considering the single people as a "family." The averages (if you take, say 3-5 people in a family) and all the single people amount to around 2.35 (or something).

From the 2010 census:

According to America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2010, the average household size declined to 2.59 in 2010, from 2.62 people in 2000. This is partly because of the increase in one-person households, which rose from 25 percent in 2000 to 27 percent in 2010, more than double the percentage in 1960 (13 percent).

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/relea.../cb10-174.html

[cavsfan1985]

Hence the reason we want to vote a new president in, who might do something about these issues. You say Mitt does not have a plan, what's Obama plan. Oh thats right to keep doing the same thing for the next 4 years. You argued yourself we can't, but want to vote for a man who is no going to change anything.

[cavsfan1985]

the math is simple and yet they blow it completely. They divide all assistane (which goes to 110 million americans) by the number of families under the poverty line (which is 40 million americans). If using the wrong denominator isn't enough, they also pump up the numerator by adding in things like college aid - isn't college aid one great way to help lift a generation out of poverty? They aren't just including college aid, they are including all child development and job training programs.

How does having a "state contribution to federal welfare" column mean anything, everything else sort of shows where the money is going, this odd one instead shows where money is coming from.

Well what is the number then? You say he is wrong, tell us what the real number is.

[sgm405]

Hence the reason we want to vote a new president in, who might do something about these issues. You say Mitt does not have a plan, what's Obama plan. Oh thats right to keep doing the same thing for the next 4 years. You argued yourself we can't, but want to vote for a man who is no going to change anything.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama...n-2012-10?op=1

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=PM66-...%3DPM66-SxHDu0

[cavsfan1985]

So Obama plan is to grow the government and issue more regulation in the private sector. Spend more money then we take in, and just tax the rich. I don't know about you, but that sounds like the same ideas that he had the past 4 years, where we almost doubled the national debt. No thanks to that.