Why do republicans keep bringing up welfare?

Question

when it's been reformed for years now? I agree it was abused in the past, but it was abused by both parties. It has been reformed and most people who receive any government assistance need it badly. Most people hate to ask for a hand out. Why do they keep bringing it up as if it's a major issue? It's as old as the abortion argument.

Answer 1

They have nothing new like McBush always more of the same!

Answer 2

Because they can't stand waiting until the first of each month...

Answer 3

We aren't. We are actually trying to bring it down.

Answer 4

My wife teaches in an inner city school where 24 out of her 25 students are on the free breakfast and lunch program.  19 out of those 25 have cable television.  15 of the 25, neither parent has a full time job.  Welfare reform has done little to encourage Americans that they need to contribute to society.  You are naive if you think it's not abused now.

Answer 5

Are we still paying for it?

Answer 6

Most people hate to ask for a hand out.  You said.

So do you conduct a survey yourself or it is simply your imgaination?

Answer 7

They are so out of touch, they don't even realize that times have changed.

It is all they have to complain about. They like to sit on their moral high horse and judge. And its sad, because all they do is make themselves look foolish.

Answer 8

It doesn't have to be called "welfare" to be welfare.  

Answer 9

Because the rich keep telling them that people on welfare have all their money. They still haven't figured out that the rich have all their money.

LOL!!

Answer 10

It still is being abused. The perpetrators have gotten smarter, that's all. They know how to work the system, while the people who sincerely need help and follow the rules and regulations fall by the wayside.

There are so many people asking for handouts it's not funny. How many people do you see holding Will Work For Food signs? But when you tell them your lawn needs to be mowed, they're not interested.

That's what bothers me about Obama. He wants to give everyone (including alcoholics and drug abusers) money with no questions asked.  

Answer 11

because according to the CBO ( the people who look at this sort of thing) entitlements will exceed the ENTIRE FEDERAL BUDGET by 2036.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07983r.pdf

The long-term fiscal outlook results from a large and persistent gap between expected revenues and expected spending.

The spending that drives the outlook is primarily spending on the large federal entitlement programs (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security). The retirement of the baby boom generation is one key element of this. In 2008 the first boomers will be eligible to draw Social Security early retirement benefits, and in 2011 the first boomers will become eligible for Medicare. In the succeeding 2 decades America’s population will age dramatically, and relatively fewer workers will be asked to support ever larger costs for retirees.

What Drives Our Nation’s Bleak Long-Term Fiscal Outlook?

Although Social Security is a major part of the fiscal challenge, it is far from our biggest challenge. Spending on the major federal health programs (i.e., Medicare and Medicaid) represents a much larger and faster growing problem. In fact, the federal government’s obligations for Medicare Part D alone exceed the unfunded obligations for Social Security. Over the past several decades, health care spending on average has grown much faster than the economy, absorbing increasing shares of the Nation’s resources, and this rapid growth is projected to continue. For this reason and others, rising health care costs pose a fiscal challenge not just to the federal budget but to American business and our society as a whole

Answer 12

It's part of a strategy of misdirection.  The main item on the Republican agenda is concentration of wealth, making the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.  By demonizing the poor, by constantly making a big deal of people on welfare, they give the impression that it's the poor who are ripping us off, and we don't notice it's really the rich.

About 90% of the welfare money we spend in the US goes to corporate welfare.  Funny how you never hear Republicans complain about that, only the other 10%.

Answer 13

WHAT!!!! Welfare is to help people get on their feet. Not to keep giving them my money so they can continue to procreate to get more of my money...they are laughing all the way to the currency exchange.

Answer 14

Cost per year for Department of Health and Human Services (which includes all programs labeled "welfare"):  $71.4 billion.

Cost per year for Department of Defense:  $515 billion dollars.

In other words, for every dollar spent on welfare, the United States spends at least $7.21 on defense.

Yet somehow, the Republicans keep whining that ALL their tax dollars are being given to the poor.

Note to answerer above:  social security payments are not "entitlements."  They are also  not "welfare."  Every social security recipient EARNS the right to the money by paying into the system in the first place.