The Sanders Movement

[overtone]

And now you want it your way.

So you're done compromising and you're gonna be just like them.

Congratulations, you're becoming a Republican !

No. There's a large, overwhelmingly significant, difference. Can you think of what it is?

Try.

Sure you can - you know what the "other side" is arguing, right? You can argue "both sides"? So you can spot the obvious thing, the blatant thing, that someone like me is going to point to. It's the same thing I always point to in this circumstance. So you can easily forestall it.

So it won't take you but a few seconds. No thought, no trouble, no time, any more than it took me.

Show us.

Edited March 20, 2016 by overtone

[Phi for All]

So you're done compromising and you're gonna be just like them.

 

Your need to equate EVERYTHING borders on the pathological. You'll never know the damage it's done to you.

[Willie71]

Once again this vague bs about "the two parties". There has been no such behavior on the part of anyone, or any faction, except the Republican Party. There is no "loggerhead" involving two Parties. There is instead one loggerhead Party, in which Party leadership - wealthy corporate rightwing authoritarian men - has encouraged and welcomed the neo-Confederate faction of the American population, financing and guiding their political voice, organizing a fascist movement in return for the electoral leverage they needed to escape the taxation and regulation of the US Federal government. So they could make a little more money, see?

 

And it worked.

That does not determine the available spectrum, but rather the distribution on it of the political will of the population involved.

And as Willie seems to have pointed out ( intentionally or not ) the attitude/comfort of the voters ( and the political spectrum which suits them ) isn't just different in differing geopolitical areas, it also changes over time. You address that to me? After I make that exact point what, four times, on this thread alone?

 

Yes, it was intentional.

No. There's a large, overwhelmingly significant, difference. Can you think of what it is?

 

Try.

 

Sure you can - you know what the "other side" is arguing, right? You can argue "both sides"? So you can spot the obvious thing, the blatant thing, that someone like me is going to point to. It's the same thing I always point to in this circumstance. So you can easily forestall it.

 

So it won't take you but a few seconds. No thought, no trouble, no time, any more than it took me.

 

Show us.

 

There are objective facts. One side may distort them a bit, but one side has faith based economics and immigration policy. Dems and Repubs are both corporatist shills, but Dems accept evidence in their policy decisions.

[Ten oz]

I think there is a bit of a collision of generations. Baby Boomers had a impactful youth movement where they fought over civil rights, war, women's rights, and etc. They held political power for decades after as both major parties became increasingly entrenched in the battle lines Baby Boomers had defined. Fast Foward and Gen X should be the natural inheritors of our political landscape but they're not; there has been a leap frog of sorts. Millennials are larger than Gen X and already out number Gen X in the labor force. Millennials are more diverse, higher educated, and socially cooperative than Gen X.

 

Millennials are not hyper focused of the old battle lines. They won't candidates that speak to them and treat them as the force they are; not as the youth vote but as the new dominate generation.

 

Bernie Sanders has done a good job speaking the language. Rather than carrying on about Syria he speak about education. Rather than carrying on about individual success and responsibility he speaks to Millennials sense of cooperation. What Sanders is talking about is a prototype for the future. What Sanders has tapped into is only growing.

[overtone]

They held political power for decades after as both major parties became increasingly entrenched in the battle lines Baby Boomers had defined.

As soon as anyone says "both major parties" they are dealing in confusion. There are almost no relevant assertions one can make about the current Republican Party that are similarly or symmetrically true of the Democratic Party.

 

There is no symmetry in the rise of fascism within the Republican Party, and its takeover of that Party. It's a one-sided phenomenon, entirely, from its funding to its media operations to its electoral base. Nothing like it has happened in the Democratic Party, or among any other demographic or political faction in the US.

 

There are no ideological battle lines behind which any major Party has become entrenched (or even encamped). This is not battle, but armed robbery and extortion.

 

The metaphor is not combat, but organized crime.

Edited March 21, 2016 by overtone

[Phi for All]

The metaphor is not combat, but organized crime.

 

And while we have very specific feelings about what combat is all about, where the allies and enemies are usually more clearly defined, when it comes to organized crime we have a blind spot. We've romanticized gangsters and thugs, pirates and thieves. We know what they do is outside the law, and yet we admire their loyalty to "this thing of theirs". It dovetails nicely with the numbness to lies and broken promises that politicians have engendered.

 

I think the combat metaphor is being pushed on us, just like taxing the wealthy proportionately is being called wealth redistribution, and gets described as "They're taking money I've earned away from me", so the implication is that the money is being taken from their accounts and given to lazy welfare addicts. Or the famous Republican Death Tax duplicity. Similarly, if it's combat, everyone wants to be on the side of right, and it's a lot easier to get folks roused up when you invoke their patriotism.

 

If people really recognized this as organized crime at the highest levels, where the corporate/military/industrial Mafia gets to write the laws that might stop its rise to power, it could vastly improve the effectiveness of the movement Sanders wants. Maybe we need to classify it with a good sound byte: Highly Organized Crime.

[Ten oz]

As soon as anyone says "both major parties" they are dealing in confusion. There are almost no relevant assertions one can make about the current Republican Party that are similarly or symmetrically true of the Democratic Party.

 

There is no symmetry in the rise of fascism within the Republican Party, and its takeover of that Party. It's a one-sided phenomenon, entirely, from its funding to its media operations to its electoral base. Nothing like it has happened in the Democratic Party, or among any other demographic or political faction in the US.

 

There are no ideological battle lines behind which any major Party has become entrenched (or even encamped). This is not battle, but armed robbery and extortion.

 

The metaphor is not combat, but organized crime.

The battles draw today between Democrats and Republicans do come from the civil rights and vietnam war era. Republicans use racism and patriotic rhetoric to divide our voting base. We see it today with Trump. The fact that I referred to both sides as entrenched was not an evaluation where I was calling them equal. Rather I was just pointing out the origin while saying that millennials are past it. It isn't going to work anymore. Or in other words progressive Baby Boomers won and millennials rather than Gen X are the inheritors of the victory.

[Willie71]

The only parallel I see in both parties is that they are corporatists who are bought by their donors. Democrats are less likely to be batshit crazy because they are tied to academia and science. The republicans are made up of people who reject academia and science.

 

The modern Democratic Party has moved away from the New deal. I just got the book being described on this video:

 

 

There are a couple more videos of the interview with Thom Hartman and Frank. The Democrats have to take Sanders' message seriously if they want to remain relevant. If not, they become the republicans and the republicans implode. A new center left party will have to rise. This trend back to the left is being seen worldwide. Modern conservatism is a failure, and people are tired of it.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Willie71

[overtone]

 

 

The battles draw today between Democrats and Republicans do come from the civil rights and vietnam war era.

There are no such battles. There is a Democratic Party trying to govern, and a fascist movement trying to take power via the Republican Party.

 

It's not combat. It's organized crime. There's only one "side".

[MigL]

No Phi, I don't equate EVERYTHING, as a matter of fact I've often stated that some Republican politicians are jackasses.

What I do equate is the hatred that's displayed by you and Overtone towards not just Republican politicians, but conservatives in general, which is virtually half the population of the US.

Just go back and re-read some of the posts that you and Overtone have made, and the kind of treatment you advocate for conservatives, or even non-aligned that you 'mistake' for conservatives. All I've tried to do is show that we can be better than people like D. Trump and some of the others who spew hate. That compassion, understanding and education are the 'high road'.

But I'm not even an American, and even though what you guys do affects me greatly, I've no right to tell you guys how to behave.

 

But its funny that you think I'm the damaged one.

[Phi for All]

What I do equate is the hatred that's displayed by you and Overtone towards not just Republican politicians, but conservatives in general, which is virtually half the population of the US.

Just go back and re-read some of the posts that you and Overtone have made, and the kind of treatment you advocate for conservatives, or even non-aligned that you 'mistake' for conservatives.

 

You should go back and reread. There is a VAST difference between the baseless, bigoted, and hateful behavior of US conservatives, and the reasoned, rational, and determined behavior of those who've had enough and want a big change. I am very sorry you aren't able to see it.

 

What you do, with your kneejerk centrist reactions, is to lend credence to the crazies, to make the insanity a valid POV that must be compromised with. You give it power it doesn't earn on merit, simply because you think moving towards the center is always best, and always involves compromise. But we've tried, and it's clear one side isn't listening ("Not going to consider your judge, Obama, because...JUST BECAUSE!"). It hasn't worked your way, despite having been tried over and over in the last 20 years or more.

 

Your argument about being better people is ridiculous. This is all about being better people. And about not compromising with the bad people. That IS how one gets better, you know.

All I've tried to do is show that we can be better than people like D. Trump and some of the others who spew hate. That compassion, understanding and education are the 'high road'.

 

How? By polluting the good with the bad? Your centrist compromising is guaranteed to give us a tainted movement, something hobbled before it gets to run. You seem to be advocating that capitulation with conservative points of view will help the Sanders Movement, which seems insane.

 

If you want to do better, you need to change. If your system is messed up, you fix what's bad about it. You don't keep some of the bad things and add some good, then hope that it all turns out good. Are you starting to see the problems inherent with your stance?

[overtone]

 

 

What I do equate is the hatred that's displayed by you and Overtone towards not just Republican politicians, but conservatives in general, which is virtually half the population of the US.

Just go back and re-read some of the posts that you and Overtone have made,

Hatred? No, there's no hatred in my posts. Pretty dispassionate descriptions, actually.

Accurate, though. Do you assume that a person would automatically hate anyone they observed acting as that faction of Americans has been acting? These are my neighbors. We lend each other snow shovels, pet each other's dogs, mow each other's lawns at need.

Meanwhile, since you claim to be able to argue both sides, that little exercise I offered to you in #76 - forestalling my obvious and many times repeated response to the nonsense you posted in #75 - remains unaddressed. I say you can't do it.

 

All I've tried to do is show that we can be better than people like D. Trump and some of the others who spew hate. That compassion, understanding and education are the 'high road'.

As long as you clearly recognize that the Trump-energized voting base of the Republican Party and its elected representation is not going to return the favor. Nor are they going to become educated, by anything said in compassion or understanding. They are not listening to such voices. They have no such source of information or communication. Talk the high road, and you are talking to yourself as far as they are concerned.

There is nothing in the exercise of compassion or understanding that requires one to be ignorant, oblivious, foolish, naive, or irresponsible, in the face of fascism taking power in the US via the Republican Party.

Obliviousness, ignorance, and refusal to recognize reality, are not stations on the high road. There is no safety in pretending things are other than they are.

W&Cheney were not better behaved because they had been treated with compassion and understanding. They did not behave better out of some sense of reciprocity to the many, many people who had granted them a completely unearned respect, or benefit of the doubt. They used their leverage and power to the fullest, and treated their opposition with contempt and slander and violence. So will any current Republican elected to the Presidency, and their backers.

[Phi for All]

Violence, chaos, and a lack of regulation are simply more profitable environments for many of the mega-corporations. If we stopped trying to light everything on fire before we deal with it, and just deal honestly, we could use the calm to reduce violence around the world, deal with terrorists economically as well as philosophically (will they need to keep attacking us if we stop drones and carpet bombing?), and hopefully show the world that the current liberal trend can really help overall prosperity. But we have to get rid of the extremist conservative clout in our politics to do it. They've made that abundantly clear. They aren't interested in working legally within the system. Mostly because they're crooks and liars who profit from the corrupt way things are now.

 

I notice Republicans have been re-writing Reagan's history yet again. They no longer tout the oft-told tale of how The Ronald slew the demon commie Soviets without firing a shot, just by using economics against them to bring down the Berlin Wall. Probably because that's the best answer now, dealing diplomatically and economically with the countries that allow terrorists to train within their borders. But lighting things on fire still makes more profit. Margins are high when you steal with a license.

[Ten oz]

No Phi, I don't equate EVERYTHING, as a matter of fact I've often stated that some Republican politicians are jackasses.

What I do equate is the hatred that's displayed by you and Overtone towards not just Republican politicians, but conservatives in general, which is virtually half the population of the US.

Just go back and re-read some of the posts that you and Overtone have made, and the kind of treatment you advocate for conservatives, or even non-aligned that you 'mistake' for conservatives. All I've tried to do is show that we can be better than people like D. Trump and some of the others who spew hate. That compassion, understanding and education are the 'high road'.

But I'm not even an American, and even though what you guys do affects me greatly, I've no right to tell you guys how to behave.

 

But its funny that you think I'm the damaged one.

The two thirds of the the U.S. population can not name a single Supreme Court Justice.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/08/20/most-americans-cant-name-a-u-s-supreme-court-justice-survey-says/

 

Most people do not follow politics. They vote for one party over another based on various cultural relationships. So to say that nearly half the country is Republican is not accurate. Large portions of the country doesn't even know the deference between our two marjor parties. Insisting that nearly half of the population is Republican is akin to the overblown estimates that claim the overwhelming majority of the country is Christian. In truth many call themselves christian as a cultural identifier yet don't attend church, pray, or read the bible. They just have some vague concept of Jesus.

 

When Overtone and Phi comment on Republicans I assume they are commenting on actual Republicans.

[Phi for All]

I have little connection to a person who fears change, to the point where they'll accept criminal actions by their leaders rather that try to stop it and work towards something better. We've had 50 years of conservative vandalism in this country. 50 years of handing our rights and liberties over to corporations interested in making money at our expense. 50 years of ignoring routine maintenance to our infrastructure. 50 years of degrading minorities with clauses of judgement in our social programs ("We'll treat you as human IF we think you deserve it"). 50 years of these bloated ticks sucking out the lifeblood of this country and giving back nothing in return.

 

I have little connection to a person who thinks dropping gasoline onto a fire will smother it, or somehow make it less costly and damaging. Our current war on terrorism has been the single biggest conservative rape of foreign policy since the Reagan administration. Attacking Islam the way W Bush did was one of the biggest mistakes made in modern history, imo. IF you're a human being, that is, and not an exploitative mega-corporation making money when things are hottest, by engineering the heat yourselves. For the hundreds of thousands of humans who had to die to make those profits possible, I'd like to apologize for my country.

 

I have NO connection at all to a person who would put personal, hateful restrictions on public funding of basic needs, like healthcare, shelter, and food. People like that have convinced themselves (with help from Rush, Beck, O'Reilly, etc) that once someone goes on welfare, it's all parties and the lazy life. They have no connection to reality, no connection to what these programs actually accomplish. They fear it's true, so it is true. Conservatives look to confirm their fears at every turn, cherry-picking the negative, ignoring the positive. And they often try to make it seem that all perspectives should get equal consideration, even when the potential damage is quite apparent. It's clear that this type of behavior is a big part of why we're in the situation we're in.

 

History shows us that we often have to make the changes that are necessary for the country, and then deal with the fallout later. Conservatives will complain, and in their ignorance they'll bitch about higher taxes and forget they're paying far less to insure their health. They'll forget about how much they griped about the horrible roads that are now fixed, and focus on how much more they're paying in taxes. And the conservatives will complain that all this diplomacy isn't making us visibly safer from terrorism, despite the fact that we won't be killing off so many humans, and we'll be having a dialogue among leaders, instead of trying to kill the mosquito with an RPG.

[waitforufo]

People like that have convinced themselves (with help from Rush, Beck, O'Reilly, etc) that once someone goes on welfare, it's all parties and the lazy life.

This is not what conservatives think. Conservatives think welfare is a poverty trap. The government is simply holding welfare recipients in poverty. Since 1964 they have created sub cultures of poverty dependent on government. 22 trillion dollars (today's dollars) and the poverty rate has had no significant change since 1964. It's time to try something different.

[Phi for All]

This is not what conservatives think. Conservatives think welfare is a poverty trap. The government is simply holding welfare recipients in poverty. Since 1964 they have created sub cultures of poverty dependent on government. 22 trillion dollars (today's dollars) and the poverty rate has had no significant change since 1964. It's time to try something different.

 

Isn't that what I said? You think welfare creates dependency, yet you refuse to look at real numbers, in favor of your comfortable lie that nothing is better after 50 years. Guess what?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_dependency

In 2005, the Department estimated that 3.8% of the American population could be considered dependent on welfare, calculated as having more than half of their family’s income coming from TANF, food stamps, and/or SSDI payments, down from 5.2% in 1996.^%5B16%5D

All this hatred towards minorities and other welfare recipients, when the "problem" you go ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT is less that 4% of welfare recipients.

 

And guess what else? We have historic evidence that if an administration is firmly behind the programs they're responsible for running, they tend to do a whole lot better (take FEMA for example, and the differences between their handling of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy). So if we stopped listening to people like you, stuck in the past with your 78s skipping on the phonograph, we might actually get those dependency figures down to an even lower single digit number.

 

I invite you to join the rest of us in 2016, where reality doesn't acknowledge your sad old lies.

[Ten oz]

This is not what conservatives think. Conservatives think welfare is a poverty trap. The government is simply holding welfare recipients in poverty. Since 1964 they have created sub cultures of poverty dependent on government. 22 trillion dollars (today's dollars) and the poverty rate has had no significant change since 1964. It's time to try something different.

In 1966, 28.5% of Americans ages 65 and over were poor; by 2012 just 9.1% were. There were 1.2 million fewer elderly poor in 2012 than in 1966, despite the doubling of the total elderly population.

In 1966, two years after Johnson’s speech, four-in-ten (41.8%) of African-Americans were poor; blacks constituted nearly a third (31.1%) of all poor Americans. By 2012, poverty among African-Americans had fallen to 27.2%

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/

 

The above numbers seem significant to me. Add to that aid the govt has provided during recessions and I think the benefits are obvious.

[Phi for All]

Raise your hand if it would bother you to be on even playing field with people who are unlike you ethnically.

 

By even playing field, I mean everyone has access to at least a minimum standard of social assistance (nobody is homeless, all have healthy food, shelter, healthcare, and education to the college level). Now go out and be prosperous.

 

I've met lots of folks who don't like the concept one bit. Free market advocates, each one of them, but when it comes to fairness in competing personally, they'd rather not allow folks of few means any way of getting ahead of them. They take it as an insult if you start out poorer but end up richer than they are. You'd be doing the very thing they preach about wanting everyone to do, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make something of yourself. But if you used to be poor and you surpass these people, they resent the hell out of it.

 

Personally, I wish every person on the planet had access to university. I wish everyone had all the knowledge they felt they could handle. Sometimes I think the reason we can't have this is because of those people, the ones who resent people more knowledgeable than they are, who used to be poorer but now are more prosperous. And of course, the mega-corporations don't want everyone to be really smart. They need that people-for-peanuts formula to satisfy the board.

[waitforufo]

Isn't that what I said? You think welfare creates dependency, yet you refuse to look at real numbers, in favor of your comfortable lie that nothing is better after 50 years. Guess what?

What you said is that conservatives believe welfare is "parties and the lazy life." Welfare holds people in poverty. Poverty is suffering. Nobody thinks poverty is "parties and the lazy life."

 

 

All this hatred towards minorities and other welfare recipients, when the "problem" you go ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT is less that 4% of welfare recipients.

I have never expressed hatred toward minorities. I have never expressed hatred of welfare recipients. I would appreciate an apology.

 

Your link show the following chart.

 

 

Your chart does not show that less than 4% of welfare recipients are dependent on welfare, it shows that 4% of Americans are dependent on welfare. That's or 12 million people and 25% of welfare recipients that the government says are dependent on welfare. It also shows that 15 percent of Americans are recipients of welfare. Your link does not define how the government decides who is dependent and who is not. Working and collecting welfare still creates dependence.

 

I own no vinyl.

 

I did find this interesting in your link

 

 

 

Attention was drawn to the issue of long-term reliance on welfare in the Moynihan Report. Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, urban Black Americans would still suffer disadvantage and remain entrenched in poverty due to the decay of the family structure.^[7] Moynihan wrote, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.” The relatively high proportion of Black families headed by single-parent mothers, along with the high proportion of children born out of wedlock, was seen as a pernicious social problem – one leading to long-term poverty and consequently reliance on welfare benefits for income, as there would be no male breadwinner working while the mother took care of her children.

 

Now my guess is that Daniel Moynihan was familiar with 78s but I don't think anyone would call him anything but a liberal. Nor do I think anyone would call him a racist. Yet he understood the tragedy of welfare and the problems it has caused to minorities.

 

Employment is the solution to poverty. Entitlement programs such as welfare have failed to reduce poverty.

In 1966, 28.5% of Americans ages 65 and over were poor; by 2012 just 9.1% were. There were 1.2 million fewer elderly poor in 2012 than in 1966, despite the doubling of the total elderly population.

In 1966, two years after Johnson’s speech, four-in-ten (41.8%) of African-Americans were poor; blacks constituted nearly a third (31.1%) of all poor Americans. By 2012, poverty among African-Americans had fallen to 27.2%

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/

 

The above numbers seem significant to me. Add to that aid the govt has provided during recessions and I think the benefits are obvious.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

 

 

22 trillion dollars has purchased the above.

Edited March 22, 2016 by waitforufo

[Willie71]

From 1965 to 1980. Look at those numbers. The new Deal and Great Society were working. Then came Reagan and repealing those gains. You can see it right there in the numbers what happened. Clinton came in, with neoliberal policies, and poverty goes down a bit, but not like true liberalism. Bush II and rise in poverty. Economy rebounds for the wealthiest in Obama's term, but the global crash, a product of right wing ideology, created massive poverty. Obama was too right wing to really help the poorest people.

[waitforufo]

Free market advocates, each one of them, but when it comes to fairness in competing personally, they'd rather not allow folks of few means any way of getting ahead of them. They take it as an insult if you start out poorer but end up richer than they are. You'd be doing the very thing they preach about wanting everyone to do, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make something of yourself. But if you used to be poor and you surpass these people, they resent the hell out of it.

I have never met a person like this in my life. People who live rags to riches stories in their lives are seen as heroes. I have read stories where the old rich look down on the new vo riche in high society, but I have never read on where the new rich cared. Well maybe The Great Gatsby, but that was about a man's infatuation with a woman. Besides, the people in low society have more fun.

Personally, I wish every person on the planet had access to university. I wish everyone had all the knowledge they felt they could handle.

Utopia is a fantasy. You should wish for more realistic goals.

Sometimes I think the reason we can't have this is because of those people, the ones who resent people more knowledgeable than they are, who used to be poorer but now are more prosperous.

Perhaps you knowledge lacks wisdom. Perhaps those that were once poor and are now prosperous understand that the only path to prosperity is hard work. You can't give people prosperity. Look at all those born in the middle class or above who end up in rags. Also, perhaps they found that hard work to be enjoyable. Like an athlete training to compete does.

And of course, the mega-corporations don't want everyone to be really smart. They need that people-for-peanuts formula to satisfy the board.

Prosperous people buy more products, so they want more prosperous people. They also provide employment to people working there way up.

From 1965 to 1980. Look at those numbers. The new Deal and Great Society were working. Then came Reagan and repealing those gains. You can see it right there in the numbers what happened. Clinton came in, with neoliberal policies, and poverty goes down a bit, but not like true liberalism. Bush II and rise in poverty. Economy rebounds for the wealthiest in Obama's term, but the global crash, a product of right wing ideology, created massive poverty. Obama was too right wing to really help the poorest people.

For the 22 trillion dollars spent, the curve is flat as a pancake from '64 to today.

[iNow]

...the only path to prosperity is hard work. You can't give people prosperity.

The challenge, of course, is that hard work is so often no longer enough.

 

It's necessary, but not sufficient.

 

That's the challenge people are trying to address, and one that I suspect you could support alongside them.

[CharonY]

 

Employment is the solution to poverty. Entitlement programs such as welfare have failed to reduce poverty.

 

First of all, the programs are not supposed to be substitution for employment. But they help in overcoming poverty issues. Your original claim was:

 

This is not what conservatives think. Conservatives think welfare is a poverty trap. The government is simply holding welfare recipients in poverty. Since 1964 they have created sub cultures of poverty dependent on government. 22 trillion dollars (today's dollars) and the poverty rate has had no significant change since 1964. It's time to try something different.

 

Claim I: assistance creates sub cultures of poverty which holds people in poverty and:

Claim II there are no changes in poverty rate since 1964.

 

I will first address Claim I using the annual congress report on "Indicators of Welfare Dependence."

The most obvious part is that dependence rates changes with the economy as other have already shown. In other words people fall into dependency but get out of it again once the economy stabilizes. This is pretty much the goal of the programs, to bridge the time until employment opportunities arise. A specific look at the length of support shows that (using 2008 data) ~80% of TANF and over 50% of SNAP and even SSI lasted a year or less.

A view on long-term recipients reveals that only 1.1% obtaind AFDC or TANF for 10 years (as assessed by receiving at least 1$ during each year of this period).

Overall the suggests that these assistance programs mostly provide short to mid-term relief. Depicting the tiny fraction that are receiving long-term support as a whole sub-culture is vastly overestimating the number an relevance.

 

I can also address the impact of these measures on poverty, but would have to read some more.

[iNow]

There's actually a word to describe what you're doing here on this topic, waitforufo. It's called "lying."

 

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/05/08/new-data-show-social-safety-net-significantly-reduces-poverty

Conservatives routinely charge that we've spent huge sums on antipoverty programs over the years with nothing to show for it. The data tell a far different story.

 

You can read here and here about how people who should know better misrepresent the poverty data. I'll focus on what we do know, which is that our safety net programs are even more effective in alleviating poverty than we had thought, according to a new analysis by my Center on Budget and Policy Priorities colleagues Arloc Sherman and Danilo Trisi.

(snip)

While the federal government has only calculated the Supplemental Poverty Measure back to 2009, Columbia University researchers have estimated it back to 1967 (without adjusting for underreporting) and concluded that the safety net cut the poverty rate from 26 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012. Without government assistance, poverty would have risen during the same period under this measure, highlighting the strong and growing role of antipoverty policies.

 

Think about that the next time someone tells you that our antipoverty policies don't work and need a complete overhaul.