A “nation of dependents?” It sure looks that way:
Direct payments. The amount of money the federal government hands out in direct payments to individuals steadily increased over the past four decades, but shot up under Obama, climbing by almost $600 billion — a 32% increase — in his first three years. And Obama’s last budget called for these payments to climb another $500 billion by 2016, at which point they would account for fully two-thirds of all federal spending.
People getting benefits. According to the Census Bureau 49% now live in homes where at least one person gets a federal benefit — Social Security, workers comp, unemployment, subsidized housing, and the like. That’s up from 44% the year before Obama took office, and way up from 1983, when fewer than a third were government beneficiaries.
Food stamps. This year, more than 46 million (15% of all Americans) will get food stamps. That’s 45% higher than when Obama took office, and twice as high as the average for the previous 40 years. This surge was driven in part by the recession, but also because Obama boosted the benefit amount as part of his stimulus plan.
If you paid attention to the President’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday, you heard an awful lot about money coming into Washington (taxes) and an awful lot about money going out of Washington (benefits and subsidies). What you didn’t hear much-if-anything about was how to curtail our ever-increasing dependency.
It’s almost as if President Obama prefers to keep us this way.
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