Welfare Billions “Real Money”
July 30, 1975
The late Senator Everett Dirksen used to warn his colleagues that “you spend a billion dollars here, another billion there, and pretty soon it’s real money.”
The arrogant attitude of public officials to spend without regard to income created a tax burden on the working segment of society that is the largest in history and growing!
Most of it goes to “human resources,” a term that marks them as impregnable.
But, by any other name, it’s still welfare and it’s still a mess.
Direct aid, aid that we can account for, now costs taxes and pays out $212 billion a year. How much is spent on indirect aid, no one has been able to find out yet.
It doesn’t matter. The average guy can’t understand a billion of anything. Beyond that, the discussions become academic and are not perceived to have any effect in the real world.
Therefore, we must not be too harsh on our congressmen, whom many believe to be human like you and me.
We owe it to our children’s future to pay attention to the farewell speech of Caspar Weinberger, outgoing secretary of the federal office of Health, Education and Welfare.
He says the government is headed for serious trouble unless we rein in welfare spending.
Pointing out that federal spending has nearly doubled in the last five years, Weinberger says, “If the trend continues, half the American people will be working to support the other half by the year 2000.”
He cites runaway welfare as the biggest, but single, factor in our unstable economy.
HEW alone spends $301 million per day, including Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, for the “unemployed, elderly, poor, and sick.”
Uncle Sam is also paying $6 billion a year for food stamps, $2 billion for subsidized housing, $8 billion for non-Medicare medical programs, $8 billion for federal education aid, $14 billion for veterans’ benefits and $4 billion for simply reported programs. like others.”
Of course, this does not include the $55 billion for Social Security payments, $11 billion for Medicare or $16 billion for public employee pensions. Nor does it include the large sums spent by states on welfare, local education, and pensions.
Every seventh person in the United States receives a monthly check directly from a HEW agency! For millions, this is their only income. Nearly 20 million Americans now use food stamps, and an equal number are eligible for them.
Weinberger proposes combining food stamps, family assistance and other non-contributory social assistance into a single work-requirement-tied cash grant for recipients without disabilities.
That wellness needs a massive overhaul is obvious. Newspapers and television networks have increasingly turned their attention to the abuses. Welfare officials will admit to fraudulent payments of a quarter of the total, suggesting that the actual total is somewhat higher.
Weinberger’s final conclusions, after a close look at the sprawling and irresponsible welfare bureaucracy and the attitude of Congress, are significant, but probably unhelpful. No one treasures the pearls of wisdom that retiring senior statesmen shed.
Those in authority, and ultimately the working citizen, appear to be increasingly aware of the potential danger of overspending. However, they are torn between fiscal responsibility and helping “losers.”
Compassion for those in danger is a commendable trait that Americans have come to feel is paramount. Unfortunately, there are far too many run-of-the-mill scammers who have learned to effortlessly manipulate this concern for personal gain.
In the long run, the real victims of the welfare scam are those truly unable to cope with life’s difficulties: the elderly, the disabled, and the infirm.
Public aid is diminished by that which is stolen from the swindler. Those who really need it receive less than would otherwise be available as the non-disabled sponge on the compassion of others.
It’s time we stopped messing around with semantics and put the matter in perspective. It is, after all, charity, not “human resources.” Those who receive non-worked aid are not “clients” but needy. It is not a “right” but a privilege granted through the generosity of others. It is not as socially acceptable to live off unemployment as it is to work. Gratitude is the proper response to compassion.
There are some signs that needy welfare recipients are realizing their interest in a fair assistance system. Many are, for the first time, beginning to cooperate with the authorities in policing the ranks.
This is good news for all citizens, because well-being affects both the rich and the needy.
As another famous American might have said, “A billion saved is a billion earned.”
