It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: TorqueyThePig
I have no problem contributing money to those in need.
I don't like contributing any amount of money to those that can work but refuse.
How many people fraud the system? That I don't know.
The top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010, according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time, households in the bottom 40 percent took in an average of $18,950 in what the CBO called “government transfers” in 2010.
originally posted by: amicktd
Regardless of what anyone says, I'd rather feed another hungry child than blow one up in a country I've never been.
The American republic has endured for well over two centuries, but over the past 50 years, the apparatus of American governance has undergone a radical transformation. In some basic respects—its scale, its preoccupations, even many of its purposes—the U.S. government today would be scarcely recognizable to Franklin D. Roosevelt, much less to Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
In 2010 alone, government at all levels oversaw a transfer of over $2.2 trillion in money, goods and services. The burden of these entitlements came to slightly more than $7,200 for every person in America. Scaled against a notional family of four, the average entitlements burden for that year alone approached $29,000.
originally posted by: jimmyx
well yeah....the WSJ article compared 1960 to now.....in 1960, tax rates on the wealthiest were very high, and there was much more union membership that paid good wages...my father was able to support the whole family in 1963 on 1 paycheck of 800 dollars a month. most of the corporations provided on the job training, raises commensurate with productivity. there were retirement packages where people didn't have to rely on food stamps, federal and state medical benefits, and federal housing allowances when they got old.
originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: jimmyx
The 60s were definitely a different time.
Hell, the poor in most places didn't even know they were poor. At least us country folk didn't. It was about hard work, saving, and looking out for your neighbors.
I believe I didn't start seeing the handwriting on the wall until around the mid to late 80s. It has been a full down hill slide after that, with me burning out the brakes the whole way.