Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households

[Bill USA]

Center For Budget And Policy Priorities Shows How Important Government Programs Are - Media Matters

Yesterday, we exposed how the conservative media has been hyping a study from the Heritage Foundation purporting to show America's growing "dependence" on the federal government. The report, however, was little more than a thinly-veiled attack on government programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Today, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released important research shedding light on just how important the government programs that conservatives attack actually are. The CBPP analyzed budget and Census data and found that more than 90 percent of the funding for programs such as Social Security and Medicare benefit people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households.

From the analysis:

Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an "entitlement society" in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households -- not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. (See Figure 1.) This figure has changed little in the past few years.

(more)

[russspeakeasy]

1. Thank you for the article......................

and the top 1% receives 24% of all tax benefits....WOW.

[jody]

2. OK but the center is a handful of people outside government with a specific agenda. Their reports

are typically long on conjecture and speculation and short on reasoned arguments from credible facts.

The cited report is one such example.

[Bill USA]

3. "typically long on conjecture and speculation and short on reasoned arguments from credible facts"

now all you have to do is cite examples, otherwise your statement is "entirely conjecture, and long on bull-shit". You can prove me wrong by citing examples to back up you assertion. (I can't wait to see what you come up with)

regarding the specific article referred to in OP:

Findings of Analysis Consistent With Leading Academic Research

In a major report on U.S. social programs last year,* leading researchers concluded "First, the U.S. system favors groups with special needs, such as the disabled and the elderly. Groups like these which are perceived as especially deserving receive disproportionate transfers and those transfers have been increasing over time. Second, the system favors workers over non-workers and has increasingly done so over time. The rise of the EITC and the decline of AFDC/TANF is most illustrative of this trend." The study also found that "the demographic group which is most underserved by the system are non-elderly non-disabled families with no continuously-employed members."

* Yonatan Ben-Shalom, Robert Moffitt, and John Karl Scholz, "An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Anti-Poverty Programs in the United States," National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2011, pp. 36,37.

[jody]

4. No, you posted the OP so you prove it is right. nt

[Bill USA]

5. NO, the referenced article is there from which you must point out examples that support your

claim. I have offered the study for the readers review. If you assert faulty argumentation by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities it is up to you to back up your claim. IF you can't do it, you can't do it. As I said your claim is "long on bullshit".

But you can prove my appraisal of your argument to be false and unsupportable, by embarrassing me with citations of CBPP faulty arguments. Your claim was sweeping covering CBPP's studies across the board. So you should be able to (and are required to) provide plenty of examples.

If you can't provide them, you made your criticism without any basis. I say you cannot back up your statement. (i.e. it was "long on Bullshit&quot .


Again, you have the article referenced to start with, - give it a go. But since your claim re CBPP was a blanket one you should also be able to cite (and actually are required to do this to establish your criticism as based upon something) a multitude of examples from any number of studies.... unless of course, as I stated, you made your fraudulent criticism without any basis.

... So prove me wrong! Can you do that?

..... or do you stand by, accepting my appraisal of your criticism as unsupportable and ... "long on bullshit? ....HUH??? ...Got anything??

[Bill USA]

6. It is typical 4 Conservatives to make claims & criticisms without feeling the need to back them up.

This is what is known as "Swift-boating". While conservatives like to live in a world of their own creation without any basis in fact - when speaking to non-Conservatives you should know you will be expected to back up your assertions with empirical evidence.

I am confident you have NO BASIS for your remarks directed at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Your insistence that you do not have to back up your claims is ludicrous and typical of conservative calumny. This is contemptible behavior more typical of a two year old but not acceptable from someone claiming to be an adult.

You must be able to back up your assertions to be taken seriously.

[Recoverin_Republican]

7. Seems like you are dodging. If you made the criticism, you should be able to back it up. Did you

have some specific examples on which to base the rather strong and sweeping generalization:

"long on conjecture and speculation and short on reasoned arguments from credible facts."

.... or didn't you?

The study cited in the OP is there for you to examine and prove wrong, or to pick out examples from, which show faulty logic or questionable support, to back up your claim.


Seems like the ball is in in your court.

[Bill USA]

8. You failed to support your general criticism of CBPP so it is apparent your remark was without basis

I guess for most, that would leave the matter settled.

I however, never like to pass up the opportunity to rub conservative noses in their positions so as to show that, invariably, their claims and rationale are without any basis or are based on very poorly documented or questionable (if not irrelevant) 'evidence'. To that end.....

One of the authors of the study cited in the OP is Robert Greenstein, the founder of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities...

http://www.cbpp.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=view&id=21
(all emphases are my own_Bill USA)

[font size="3"]Greenstein is the founder and President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.[/font] He is considered an expert on the federal budget and a range of domestic policy issues, from anti-poverty programs and various aspects of tax policy to health reform and Social Security.


In 1996, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship [font size="3"]for making “the Center a model for a non-partisan research[/font] and policy organization.”

In May, he received the 2010 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science, which has cited him as [font size="3"]“a champion of evidence-based policy whose work at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is respected on both sides of the aisle.”[/font]

Note the The MacArthur Fellowship Program

The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (nicknamed the Genius Grant) is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation each year to typically 20 to 40 United States citizens or residents, of any age and working in any field, who "show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."