35% of Americans Receiving Government Welfare
The United States is on a “dangerous road to fiscal decline and growing dependence on government,” and this is the “real legacy of Obamanomics.” That warning comes in an editorial from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD), which cites reports pointing to the widening discrepancy among Americans in what they pay in to government — and what they take out. In the second quarter of last year, 107 million Americans were receiving some kind of government welfare — not including Medicare or Social Security — according to a study from the Senate Budget Committee. That’s up from 97 million just over two years ago. Given that the 2010 Census showed the nation with a population of 308 million, the 107 million getting government assistance now comprise 35 percent of the total population. In today’s federal budget, 70 percent of all spending goes to aid programs for individuals such as housing, food, income, student aid or other forms of welfare, IBD reports. But IRS data show that nearly half of all Americans, 49.5 percent, pay no income taxes at all. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the middle 20 percent of income earners — the true middle class — paid just 9 percent of federal taxes in 2009, and only 2.7 percent of total federal individual income taxes, while earning 15 percent of before-tax income. President Obama has insisted that the “rich” do not pay their fair share of federal taxes. But the top 20 percent of earners paid nearly 70 percent of all federal taxes, and 94 percent of federal individual income taxes, while earning 50 percent of the income, according to the CBO. And the top 1 percent alone paid more than 22 percent of all federal taxes, and 39 percent of federal individual income taxes, while earning 13 percent of the income. Those earners paid just 17.6 percent of federal individual income taxes when President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. In its report headlined “The United States of Dependency?” IBD observed that “we’re now on our way to a European-style welfare state. This is the ugly reality of Obamanomics. It fosters dependency in exchange for financial security. But that security is a mirage. “The only real economic security any nation has is the strength and vitality of its private economy.” IBD pointed to two other troubling numbers. New Census figures show that 43 percent of all immigrants remain on welfare 20 years after arriving in this country. And a new economic study found that nearly half of Americans die with less than $10,000 in assets, which the IBD calls “a sad comment on how government has displaced personal initiative and private savings in preparing for retirement.”
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