Screw the poor, start a war.

The blueprint passed on a largely party-line vote, 226-197, but with room to spare as initially wary conservatives came around to the proposal. Just 14 House Republicans opposed the measure, while every Democrat voted against it.

The measure increases defense spending by boosting a war fund by $90 billion and balances the budget in a decade by cutting $5 trillion in spending overall, largely on social programs like food stamps and Medicare.

Story

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They're itching to bomb more brown people. Any volunteers?

they see me bombin' they hatin'

We have to spend more on defense even if we're not at war because it makes a lot of sense.

Also poor people should stop being poor.

People are so poor, all they have left is money.

Ah, food stamps. Reminds me of the time I was at a Lucky's Supermarket in Florida. A big fat mama nearly ran me over trying to get first to the cashier with two full carts of groceries. I let it go after seeing her pay for the groceries with food stamps. Then, I saw her outside piling in the groceries into the trunk of a brand, spanking new Lexus.

I'm less worried about the 3% increase to the military budget, and more worried about trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

Meanwhile Walmart continues to rake in the cash while trying to find every loophole possible to pay their employee's less and have them use government welfare systems..

People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as “parasites” fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by it’s host, one that can make it’s host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society. ~Jason Read

"It includes a provision known as "reconciliation" that allows the Senate to pass legislation repealing Obamacare with a simple majority vote, a sweetener for conservatives."

LOL this again? So bizarre and really shows it's all about politics and 0 fucks is given about the individual who has benefited from the ACA. Also, conservatives once again showing their economics are dumb.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Both defense and welfare programs are shitty way to spend taxpayer dollars. I rather see that money goes toward education.

There's riches to plunder in war me fellow sailor. Arrrrgh

Because the US military budget isn't huge enough.

How did you come to this conclusion?

Of course they want a bigger military budget, Republicans don't want Government spending unless it's either for the military, or subsidizing the already rich companies like Walmart. All the while, there are millions of homeless, but they don't REALLY matter right? Politicians are a joke for both parties, but Republicans get under my skin a little bit more, I think they need to go back to an economics class and see how their Demigod Reagan and his much beloved Reaganomics destroyed the economy during the 80's and G.W. Bush reinstated a very similar model and BOOM, another economic fall. Oh well, it'll never change as long as we keep giving these people power.

How come people are starving when food taste so good?

I'm specifically talking about ones that offer federal subsidies for living expenses. I feel like that takes away people's incentive to be independent and degrades work ethics.

always with the 10 years... every budget proposes balancing it in 10 years and it never happens. the increased revenue from tax cuts never materialize, more social welfare spending is approved, there's a country that needs to be destroyed etc etc etc.

it's be refreshing if once they just came out and said "look guys, we don't know what the **** we're doing with your money, but we're going to keep taking it from you anyway"

Par for the course if you ask me.

and what's the Senate or President likely to do with this?

It's actually quite the opposite - no one WANTS to be on programs like TANF and SNAP, it is seen as a last resort and with how the poor are stigmatized these days it is even less pleasant. For one, to even qualify for these programs you need to be working or actively looking for work. The only ones who live off social welfare programs are the elderly and disabled and I think we can both agree that cutting benefits for them would be a disaster. The idea of a "welfare queen" is a myth and these benefits don't provide enough to live on them alone - it's meant to be a supplement to one's income. Vast majority of recipients are low income individuals needing help to get by and these government programs are good ways to get help rather than go to more shady sources like payday loan stores.

Contrary to popular belief welfare and other programs like unemployment benefits are the most effective form of government stimulus simply because it's money that directly goes to individuals that on average spend more of their money simply because they have to. Thus helping grow the economy. It's the same idea behind why tax cuts for the middle class will improve the economy - because that group of people uses that extra income to use, whereas rich individuals are more likely to pocket it into a bank.

I was gonna say that the poor aren't doing so bad these days. But, like, I guess that might not still be the case after making those kinds of cuts to social programs.

The US already possesses far more military capacity than it needs to terrorize brown people all across the globe.

This accelerated war effort is aimed at Russia and China, not at the Third World. It should be readily apparent to anybody who has been following events in Ukraine (and other nations on Russia's border) that the US is preparing Europe to serve as a proxy in a fully-fledged war against Russia.

A global conflagration is probably much more imminent than most people imagine.

Your statements are so naive and it shows that you really don't have any interaction with people on welfare. The reality is that, although there are many who are on welfare as a last resort, they are also many(probably more) who are milking the system for free money while taking odd/illegal jobs off the books on the side.

I have several friends who work for social services, and a few who are on social services, and the reality of what actually goes on compoletely contradicts the theory you paint about social programs in your first paragraph. Your theory sounds nice, but it does not reflect the reality of what really goes on with people receiving social services.

and to be clear, I am not against welfare or unemployment at all, I do think they are extremely important, but they are in harsh need of reform, and when I say reform I don't mean take them away completely, I mean revise the benefit packages and add job placement and education programs to the benefits while at the same time taking away benefits from those not actively seeking employment and/or engaging in illegal activities

@br0kenrabbit: When are we going to end the war on poverty.

Your friends' stories don't match up with government reports and other collected data out there. I'm not sure why you decide to say I'm the naive one when you're trying to use anecdotes as evidence.

On unemployment: "Finally, $580 million of the $2.45 billion in total UI overpayments for 2001, or 1.9% of total UI payments for that year, was attributable to fraud or abuse within the UI program."
source: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/humres/107cong/6-11-02/6-11find.html

SNAP: "More than 46 million people receive food stamps, nearly half of them children. The average monthly benefit is $132 per person."
"Overall, food stamp fraud costs taxpayers about $750 million a year, or 1 percent of the $75 billion program that makes up the bulk of the department's total budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program."
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/food-stamp-fraud-agriculture-department_n_1542034.html

"The national payment error rate reported for SNAP, which combines states' overpayments and underpayments to program participants, has declined by 56 percent from 1999 to 2009, from 9.86 percent to a record low of 4.36 percent."
source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-956T

Data for Unemployment Insurance (UI) is harder to come by since it's a state thing but here's a chart for each state. The highest fraud rate looks to be Arizona with 7.1%.

There's a lot more data like that out there if you're interested in reading more. And a lot of the over-payments are attributable to government/human error rather than someone willingly trying to game the system money they paid into anyway. You're way more likely to see government fraud done by defense contractors employed by the government rather than citizens. I agree with the bolded but at the same time the system is fine as it is, IMO. If one is actually serious about ending government fraud - that energy is better put to use going after corporate welfare like subsidies to shitty companies. "Corporate welfare in the federal budget costs taxpayers almost $100 billion a year... Policymakers claim that business subsidies are needed to fix alleged market failures or to help American companies better compete in the global economy. However, corporate welfare often subsidizes failing and mismanaged businesses and induces firms to spend more time on lobbying rather than on making better products. Instead of correcting market failures, federal subsidies misallocate resources and introduce government failures into the marketplace."

Cool, maybe we can afford to launch more drone strikes and kill more innocent civilians.

@KHAndAnime: The American way. lol

@Aljosa23:

Your posts were informative. Thanks.

i hope my taxes I pay specifically go towards chemical weapons, my preference

I'll let the boss know so he can set it aside.

Some people don't have a clue. When unemployment benefits run out, many people suddenly find the motivation to find a job.

About two thirds of the federal budget consists of checks going to people. Social Security isn't even included in the federal budget, and it itself is exploding.

The only American city that spends more money on the school system than Baltimore is New York. And they both suck.

Barack Obama and the democrats owned the government for two years, and couldn't be bothered to bring any new ideas to the table, just piddle and call the rich evil. Which coming from wealthy democrats is pretty rich, all right...

America has spent as much as 15 TRILLION DOLLARS in a war on poverty, and it's stagnant.

Money isn't the problem. It's the people and policies and refusal to admit that policies don't work and the money is wasted.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I'm somewhat confused. Isn't the current military budget roughly around $600 billion? So how would increasing the budget by $90 billion only be a 3% increase?

Sorry I meant it would be a 3% increase in terms of the yearly budget for the entire government. You are absolutely correct that 90 billion is far more than a 3% increase for the military.

Oh ok, gotcha. But does the military really need that extra 90 billion? If anything, they should be cut back not increased. (I'm not saying whether or not you agree with the military needing that extra 90 billion, I'm just throwing my opinion into the ring).

Where are you getting those numbers?

Also, where do you learn that about Social Security?

I ask because about 24% of the federal budget in 2014 was utilized for Social Security, or $851 billion.

http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

Man I just want to see our military bomb the shit out of D.C. That's about the only way to fix the mess of a government we have. Start over with real humans instead of brainwashed sock puppets.

That "3%" increase for the military should just about cover it...

But we can't just stop being poor, a lot of us would love to be not poor (or middle-class) we can't help it that life continues to be unfair to us, dislikes us, and never sends us ships of gold.

Rich politicians that came from rich families, that got everything handed to them will never understand.

Food stamps? Aren't stickers for children?

Republicans are vile disgusting racist pieces of crap. This just further proves why the repukes are unelectable and only get in when turnout is is low. 2016 is the year of the Dems and the vile poor hating repukes at this rate will never win the White House ever again.

Defense needs to be massively cut, there is ZERO logical reason to have it this high much yet increase it. Social programs need more money, not less.

It doesn't even need the 594 plus billion it has. Repukes are just war hawks who want to bomb this crap out of the middle east.

Yeah heard that one a million times. I'm disabled and collect food stamps. I use to love when people watched me drive off in brand new Jaguar XK8. I was living with my parents for about a year and my step dad use to let me borrow his car to go grocery shopping.

One day I was ringing my food up and I paid with a food stamp card. There was a guy behind me in line with a business suit on. He was mumbling under his breath and he brushed into me very rudely. I saw him in the parking lot getting into a piece of junk car and he watched me get into a brand new Jaguar. The look on his face was priceless.

Vets and disabled people get food stamps too. I get about $190 a month and no I don't buy lobster and steak with it. My food stamps have to last me an entire month. I have paranoid schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.

*Puts on Republican hat* GET A DAMN JOB AND STOP LIVING OFF MAH TAX DOLLARS YOU INGRATE!

@aljosa23: The funny thing about statistics are that they are extremely easy to manipulate to make just about any point that you want. If you really believe everything you posted to be 100% true than you are as naive as I said you were. The fact is there is a ton of fraud going on that the government does not know about so of course the numbers you posted are as low as they are. People in the welfare offices often sit around and trade tips on ways to beat the system and the end result is that people who are in real need of assistance get screwed and a bunch of lowlifes driving around in beemers are milking the system for all its worth,

I think idealogically we agree that these programs are necessary and can potentially be vey helpful to those in need, the reason I call you naive (which is not meant to be an insult) is because you seem to believe that the programs are working exactly as intended, even going as far ro print government statistics to make your point. But the sad reality is those statistics do not reflect the reality of what is going on in the world, or at the very least what is going on where I am from (New York).

Just out of curiousity, where are you from? and do you have any experience with welfare programs outside of idealogy?

Poor people aren't screwed....the middle class is.

I get $900 month from disability. I worked for 10 years making $22 an hour trust me if I could I'd rather work. I now make in a month what I use to make in a week. There will come a day you might not be able to work. You're not going to enjoy living off the peanuts the government throws your way. Better hope you don't get injured or become ill. Living in the most expensive country on the planet as a second class citizen isn't fun. Going from $60k a year to $10k a year isn't a pleasant experience especially loosing everything you worked for.

And deriding statistics in favor of personal analogies gives one free reign to make whatever unsubstantiated claims they want.

Statistics combined with a transparent methodology can be very revealing and reliable. An adequately transparent methodology (which most reputable statisticians provide as part of their study) removes most of the ambiguity you refer to.

Granted, people like Maddow or Limbaugh can ignore the methodology, but that's not an indictment of statistics - it's just dishonest.

I agree that it should be cut back, I mentioned it even. It is one thing to have an active military force, it is another to have one that is becoming unsustainable.

Let's take it easy on throwing insults. It does not look good for anyone when that starts transpiring.

and you are assuming the government is transparent? That is a terrible assumption to make, and it is not just the talking heads that ignore the methodology, the government does all the time. Just look at the "emplyoment" statistics that no longer count people who do not receive benefits, yet many of these people are still unemployed.

If you really believe that there is as little corruption in the welfare systems as those statistics point out and that the government is honest and transparent with their figures than I don't know what to tell you.