Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was right last week when he wrote in USA Today that “the debt ceiling debate in Washington is a struggle over the kind of government we want. If you want a government that runs everything from the student loan business to car companies, then taxes will have to go up. If you think government is too big already and should start to pull back, then Washington has to change its ways — fast.” As if to punctuate McConnell’s remarks, President Obama made it clear through senior aides Monday that he will veto the “cut, cap and balance” proposal favored by congressional Republicans. Since CCB includes actual spending cuts, caps future federal spending at pre-TARP levels, and requires, via a constitutional amendment, that the federal budget be balanced, Obama has officially put himself on the record against all three. What Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress seek, as McConnell so aptly put it, is government with its hand in everything.
Further accentuating this issue was a new study released Monday by the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank’s Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield examined U.S. Census Bureau and other federal government data and found the following facts about the typical poor American family:
» The family lives in a home that is in good repair, not crowded and equipped with air conditioning, clothes washer and dryer, and cable or satellite TV service.
» The family prepares meals in a kitchen with a refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave as well as oven and stove.
» The family has use of two color TVs, a DVD player, VCR and — if children are there — an Xbox, PlayStation or other video game system.
» The family had enough money in the past year to meet essential needs, including adequate food and medical care.
These facts are made possible because Americans are the most generous people on Earth. Through our churches, private relief agencies, charitable foundations and government at all levels, Americans provide trillions of dollars of assistance to the less fortunate among us, who number approximately 30 million, according to the Census Bureau.
Despite these facts, liberal Democrats routinely demand that the federal government spend more on poverty, mostly through the 70 separate, means-tested federal anti-poverty programs (not including Social Security or Medicare). As a result, combined federal and state spending on means-tested welfare will total $910 billion this year, or about $20,000 per poor person — 40 percent higher than the prerecession level, according to Rector. “Under President Obama’s budget plans, this spending will increase. The U.S. will spend more than $10 trillion on means-tested anti-poverty aid over the next decade,” he told The Washington Examiner. It would be easier to resolve controversies like the debt ceiling if those constantly demanding more spending and taxes actually understood where our tax dollars are going.
