A new study released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, refutes a common belief among conservatives that our government is nothing more than a tool to transfer wealth from the top to the bottom in the form of entitlements and welfare.
They found that most of the benefits now flow to the middle class, most likely because the middle class has been hit so hard over the past 30 years by conservative tax policies, tax breaks and incentives designed to let upper income earners pay a lower percentage in taxes than the middle class must pay!
A CBO study last year concurred. It found that in 1979, the bottom fifth received over half, 54 percent, of all government largesse, but by 2007, the bottom 20 percent were only getting a bit over a third at just 36 percent.
Today, it is our growing elderly population who collect just over half of all government benefits and those with severe disabilities get another 20 percent.
"The safety net became much more work-based," wrote Arloc Sherman and his collaborators at the center. "In addition, the U.S. population is aging, which raises the share of benefits going to seniors and people with disabilities."
And here's another kicker that might confuse or upset the bigots among us!
It found that blacks who make up 22 percent of the poor, receive just 14 percent of government benefits, very close to their 12 percent population share; while whites, who make up 42 percent of the poor, receive 69 percent of government benefits.
Rod Livdahl
Mesa
Chet posted at 9:56 am on Wed, Feb 22, 2012.
Upsetting bigots with facts is always fun.
As far as using reports from any "think tank", it's a good idea to check the source yourself.
For example, when our nation's credit was downgraded, both the left and the right were pointing fingers at each other.
A quick visit to the Standard and Poors website gave me their report, all of 8 pages, and free, which clearly pointed to the Tea Party supported members of congress at the reason for the downgrade.
Took me two minutes of work while the right wing folks spent days saying "nuh-uh, it wasn't us".
Always check the source, and google/bing/yahoo search the author of any article.
Boxwatcher posted at 9:39 am on Tue, Feb 21, 2012.
Sorry, I should state that is a Wiki copy and paste. I could C&P the Tax Foundation and the Heritage Foundation but you all can do that yourselves. They lost me at "conservative think tank", a bit of an oxymoron.
Boxwatcher posted at 9:33 am on Tue, Feb 21, 2012.
Donors
The Center is supported by a number of foundations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, as well as individual donors. It accepts no government support.
According to New York Times reporter Matt Bai, CBPP is funded by the Democracy Alliance. According to Bai's account, representatives of CBPP attended a May 2006 meeting of the Democracy Alliance to "talk about the agendas they were busy crafting that would catapult Democratic politics into the economic future."
Criticisms and Response
The Heritage Foundation and the Tax Foundation, two politically conservative groups that oppose the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities's policy positions, accuse the group of producing misleading studies. These critics focus on what they consider to be fallacious assumptions and inaccurate projections made by the group's analysts. Defenders of the group note that the Center's analyses are based on the work of independent, nonpartisan authorities such as the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Government Accountability Office.
rick3390 posted at 9:06 am on Tue, Feb 21, 2012.
You lost me at "Center on Budget and Policy Priorities" which is funded by the Democracy allliance.