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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Government waste
Message-ID: <29200163@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Nov-84 19:01:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.29200163
Posted: Fri Nov  9 19:01:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Nov-84 20:57:28 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:hpfcla:-2030000100:uiucdcs:29200163:000:2705
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Nov  9 18:01:00 1984

>  'Professor Ronald Nash...points out that the United States
>  spends $250 billion a year to fight poverty.  This is enough
>  to make an annual payment of $34,000 per year to each family
>  below the poverty line.  Black economist Thomas Sowell points
>  out that the amount to raise every family above the poverty
>  line has been calculated and in total it amounts to one-third
>  of the amount spent to fight poverty.'

Well, I hate to resort to using facts in net.politics.  But I've done it
before, and some people claim to appreciate it.  So here are some numbers
on federal programs which take money from taxpayers and give it to
individuals, always in the name of "helping the poor and needy."

	Actual outlays for Fiscal 1982, in millions.
	(Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Feb. 5, 1983, p.251

	Health care services			 68,350
	Social security				161,805
	Other income security programs (*)	 67,351
	-------------------------------         -------
	Total transfer payment programs		297,806

	(*) Income security programs include unemployment compensation, 
	    housing assistance, and food stamps 

That's a lot of money.  Of course, not much of it goes to poor people.  The
largest part of it goes to the well-paid civil servants who run these
programs, and to people over 65 who are not poor.

Now let's consider the poor.  Turn please in your copy of the U.S.
Statistical Abstract, 1982-83, to page 446, where we find:

    Number of individuals (in families or unrelated)
    under the poverty level as of March 1981.  
    Only cash income considered				12.9 million

    Aggregate income deficit (ie, total $ needed
    to bring all of these people to the poverty level) $29,700 million

Wow!  That works out to about $23,000 per poor person in transfer
payments.  The federal goverment clearly spends enough money on
programs advertised as "helping the poor" to obliterate poverty.  Lots,
lots more than necessary.  Yet there is clearly poverty in the US,
seemingly untouched by federal spending.

Is the federal government interested in reducing poverty?  I don't
think so.  I think the purpose of these programs is to provide
political power to those who support them in Congress.  It's a simple
recipe:  take a little (well, actually a hell of a lot) of money from
everyone, skim off a BIG slice for the civil servants, and hand it out
to people likely to vote for you.  Make sure that you don't actually *do*
anything about poverty, else you have no reason to continue the scam.

The problem is not that we don't spend enough money on social programs.
The problem is that most of the social programs are not aimed at the poor.

Scott Renner
{ihnp4, pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner