I once had some friends[1] who were your typical Rush Limbaugh-loving conservatives who loved to complain about welfare programs. CNBC offers a nice slide show on your tax dollars at work. It basically breaks down like this:
42% – Military
22% – Healthcare
10% – National Debt
8% – Anti-Poverty programs
4% – Education and social services
4% – Law enforcement
3% – HUD
3% – DOE, Environment, Science
1.5% – Agriculture
So let’s say welfare programs as we know them are split between social services and anti-poverty programs. Let’s be generous and say welfare programs take up 5% of your tax dollar. So if you gave the US $1,000 in taxes, that means you spent $50 on welfare programs. I realize $50 is a lot of money for something you hate, but when the money is pooled, can’t you just pretend you didn’t spend that $50 on welfare and that I gave $100 for it? Does it really matter that much to you?
1.) They are no longer my friends because when I repeatedly requested that they not send me pro-Bush, pro-Iraq War emails, they did not stop doing so. I told them I would block their email addresses if they continued, and they did, so I blocked them and have not spoken to them since 2004 or so. I wonder what they think of Bush, Saddam, WMDs, etc., now.
not to mention “corporate welfare” which costs us all Much more!
i read in the atlanta paper today that 61% of corporations didnt pay federal taxes this year, due to bailouts, incentive programs, etc etc etc.
where’e the outrage about That?!
Katie beat me to it. Corporate welfare.