Opponent To Food Stamp Cuts

What are you basing your data on?

I did find some figures that are higher than 7-8%, though...


Bureau of Labor Statistics
130.7 million workers in 2011. Here are the percentages:

Total government share of U.S. employment, January 1960: 15 percent
Total government share of U.S. employment, March 2011: 17 percent

Total manufacturing share of U.S. employment, January 1960: 29 percent
Total manufacturing share of U.S. employment, March 2011: 9 percent

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...moore-says-ratio-people-working-government-m/

It doesn't include the military...



http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/has-government-employment-really-increased-under-obama/

 

Msg #58 The revolt was fought due to taxation without representation. Britian was our oppressor ; taxation was the club you beat us with. The cultural divide still exists.

 

OK- Sorry, just thought we we,re going in the same direction- -my bad

 

Last numbers I saw were as of April 2011, 22.5 million counting Local, State and Federal employees. The April 2011 Labor force size was reported to be 153,478,000, which would equate to 14.67% employed by Local, State, or Federal government. Maybe the 17% figure includes the military? Are there about 3.6 million serving in the military?

Current month Labor force, unemployed, %unemployed
August 2007....152,749,000....7,067,000....4.6%
August 2008....154,641,000....9,438,000....6.1%
August 2009....154,300,000...14,819,000...9.6%
August 2010....154,078,000...14,673,000...9.5%
August 2011....153,707,000...13,837,000...9.0%
August 2012....154,647,000...12,483,000...8.1%
August 2013....155,486,000...11,316,000...7.3%

Food stamps are but one issue of a very complex and growing problem, which like most problems government feels can be solved simply by throwing more money at it. Good investments pay returns, or at the very least recover the initial costs. In the rare instances, although I can't think of one off the top of my head, where government has done something leaving no unpaid debt, it is very likely that individuals from the private sector could have done a much better job.

 

We get it, libertarians believe in a debt free free market utopia where somehow the market has humanity's best interests in mind, but in fact, we need a strong government to regulate and keep individual corporations in check, and when it comes down to the issue of debt, debt is a fact of life, and everyone is indebted to someone in some way, on some level. Why would this not be true financially?

100% Self reliance is a myth, an ideal that can never be really obtained. Humans and all beings in fact are interconnected and co-dependent.

Also, the Food Stamp cut was a terrible bill and I hope it's vetoed.

 

Indie

What growing problem, can you please clarify?

I mean the neoliberal ideas that many right wingers support and which began to take hold in the 1970’s onward are not about seeking full employment (as Keynesian based models are), it is about having unemployment because that is one of the means of driving down wage prices. It is the same reason why so many neoliberals oppose organised labour movements and social programmes because their removal would also increase the possibility for exploitation, as in work or starve.

As pointed out thousands of times many people that are seeking assistance are working. People in hardship may not like the wage been offered but are more likely to accept what they can; the power is with the employer.

To me the problem seems to be that government is increasingly subsidizing employers allowing them to pay very low wages that people have to top up with assistance.

 

Indie

Oh hell Indie once again bringing up stuff that we’ve been though what seems like a million times before and which you’ve never been able to defend from criticisms, why do you do it?

Alright let me choose a previous post - ok this one will do – “The prosperity of the US was in part built on easy access to previously untouched resources…and a lot of the problem in the early period was a lack of infrastructure by which it could be tapped. This was often realised by governance which often used public money or enacted ways of raising money to construct the roads bridges, canals and later railways that were needed to bring prosperity for example the Erie Canal that brought such economic benefits to New York and other cities on the eastern seaboard.

The railways opened up the Midwest and allowed goods and materials access to the Pacific and Atlantic and the roads carried that on, I mean Eisenhower’s Federal Aid Highway act of 1956 has been called the "Greatest Public Works Project in History".

Then there is the thing we are talking on - the internet and the World Wide Web.

Also public works are about spreading the benefits of prosperity, infrastructure does not just help businesses but also families and individuals. For example sewage system have done a great deal to improve the lives of people - in 1950’s America many (some 50% in rural areas) had no plumbing or flushing toilets while today only a few go without those things. “

Thing is that government’s investments have often brought great dividends.

 

"Thing is that government’s investments have often brought great dividends."

Yes! And a well fed lower class populace will be happier and more likely to spend what they do have on a more diverse range of commodities, and individuals within that class perhaps will become more motivated to become educated, move up to the middle class, get off the food stamps, and become even more productive in time.

Even food stamps can pay dividends in the future.

Remember how depression era boxing champion Jimmy Braddock was on welfare for awhile and then paid off what he had been given when he earned the opportunity to fight for and won the title. That was a symbolic gesture of what happens when lower class people are given opportunities.