Welfare Tax dollars

[ScruU2wice]

I was sitting in my college lounge just blowing off some time and me a group a kids started talking about our economic views. This lead to an avalanche of debate where there was one guys ranting about degenerating all welfare systems, privatizing schools, and deregulating businesses. Which in themselves maybe valid beliefs but everyone of his points ended up with me saying that anyone of the things he was talking about would generate polarization of economy with the rich getting slightly richer and poor becoming desperately poorer, to which his response was "that's fine, I don't care." or the classic "well it sucks for poor people." But he was definatally not opposed to the expense of building a three layer fence aloung the thousands of miles of mexican border, with trained snipers armerd with rubber bullets manning a guard tower every mile or so.

The only thing that got me was that he kept incesently saying that the majority of tax dollars collected by the government went into entitlement programs like medical insurance for low income families, and welfare and the such. He had no way of substantiating the point, so I just kept calling bullshit on it without being able for certain to say that he was wrong, so I'm wondering if someone has any good evidence to solidify this claim or denounce it. It won't dramatically shift my opinion either way, I'm just curious.

[Grislygus]

I know a someone on welfare, and he's pissed about it. He screwed up early in life, had kids and married early, etc. Now, with four kids, he barely pulls through because both he and his wife are on welfare and have under the table jobs.

The problem is, they don't want to be on welfare, they want to become educated enough to get actual jobs. Unfortunately, if either one of them enrolls in college, that person is suddenly no longer eligible for welfare, and they obviously can't work as much while at school.

He's determined, though, and by scrimping and saving for years he's able to risk going to college. It's still damn hard, though. He feels that the welfare program is self defeating because it actually discourages people from getting educated and taking charge of their lives.