America's War on Poverty - a $15 Trillion Big Fail

In most poor nations, poverty truly is grueling as many attempt to survive at bare subsistence levels; most don't even have access to clean water, running water, electricity or plumbing . In America, those defined as poor get taxpayer funded cellphones and many other perks.

Obama Phone: Gov to Spend $2.4 Billion On Millions of Free Phones In 2012

The government's definition of poverty is quite shocking and is specifically designed to encourage government dependency among folks who are not poor.

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

Fortysix percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a threebedroom house with oneandahalf baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Seventysix percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than twothirds have more than two rooms per person.

The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly threequarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars. Ninetyseven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

Seventyeight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

Seventythree percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middleclass children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higherincome children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

Source: Understanding Poverty in America

In America we don't help those who are truly poor.  We simply transfer wealth from those who produce to those who refuse to produce because living off somebody else is the American way.

Moreover, much has been reported about how food stamp recipients use their benefits to purchase tattoos, booze, cigarettes, vacations and many restaurants even accept food stamps because the government says that food stamp recipients have the right to dine out. The food stamp program (renamed SNAP) is a giant fraud and the government actually advertises to sign up more folks. Astoundingly, over 45 million Americans are collecting food stamps, here. In America you can even win a million dollar lottery and collect food stamps.  It's happened, here.

A Michigan woman who won $1 million in the lottery is defending her decision to keep receiving food stamps.

"I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn't I thought maybe it was OK because I'm not working," Amanda Clayton said.

Clayton won the money last fall and has since paid cash for a new home, and bought a new car.

It's as if Americans no longer even have a conscious, a sense of right and wrong or even a modicum of human decency and morality.  Unfortunately, the government itself is responsible for creating these thieves by encouraging dependency.  Why work if somebody else is going to be robbed at the point of a gun to give a person everything that they could possibly want - cellphones, tattoos, booze, vacations and dining out at the expense of someone who works, pays taxes and probably can't afford to dine out.
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The Cato Institute just came out with a study documenting the hugely expensive horrors of the welfare state, here.

The federal government runs 126 separate anti-poverty programs. That may surprise most Americans, who think of welfare as the cash benefits provided under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children. But the U.S. welfare system is far larger than that.

There are 33 housing programs, for example, run by four different Cabinet departments, including, bizarrely, the Department of Energy. There are 21 programs providing food or food-purchasing assistance. They're administered by three different federal departments and one independent agency. There are eight different health care programs administered by five separate agencies in HHS. Six Cabinet departments and five independent agencies oversee 27 cash or general assistance programs. Altogether, seven different Cabinet departments and six independent agencies each administer at least one anti-poverty program.

All those programs cost taxpayers more than $668 billion last year. That's an increase of more than $193 billion since Barack Obama became president. It's roughly 2½ times greater than any previous increase over a similar time frame in U.S. history and will increase means-tested welfare spending by about 2.4 percent of gross domestic product.

Moreover, if one includes state and local welfare spending, government at all levels will spend more than $952 billion this year to fight poverty.....

Combined with state and local spending, government spends $20,610 for every poor person in America — or $61,830 per poor family of three.

Given that the poverty line for that family is just $18,530, we should have theoretically wiped out poverty in America many times over.

A family of 3 receives $62,000 a year in entitlement freebies! In the last quarter of 2011, median family income in America was $51,413 according to USA Today, here.

Although Republicans their idiotic mouthpieces are now screaming that Obama is the Food Stamp President, the real truth is that food stamp programs were greatly expanded under Bush and the Republicans.

Bush is the REAL Food Stamp President

President Bush dramatically expanded eligibility, restoring benefits to nearly a million individuals at the beginning of 2003, and paving the way for the program to expand as it did during the rest of presidency. As a result, Bush managed to oversee unprecedented growth in the program even as the economy grew. Obama then followed up on this with an eligibility expansion of his own in the 2009 stimulus package.

It’s not unreasonable to criticize Obama for the expansion of the food stamps program under his watch. But Obama's Republican critics shouldn’t forget that it was a GOP president who helped make that expansion possible.

Yes, America is one hideously corrupt cesspool at all levels. However, it requires an immoral and corrupt people to beget an immoral and corrupt government.  In many ways, the government just mirrors the souls of the people.