Tag: welfare

20 Percent of Welfare Spending Goes to the Households Taxed To Fund It

About one in every five dollars that passes through the federal welfare system ends up right back where it started, according to a new report.

It’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s more like “robbing Peter to pay Peter,” wrote the report’s author, Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute.

As the federal welfare state has grown to a point where many middle-class and even some upper-income households receive benefits, it has become more common for the same households to both pay federal taxes and collect federal transfer payments. Glock’s paper shows how significant that overlap is: About 20 percent of the annual funds in the federal welfare system are simply returned to households that paid that amount in federal taxes.

And if you don’t count households that are receiving Social Security—the largest federal welfare program, even though it is rarely identified as such—the percentage of welfare payments canceled out by taxes within the same year is 29 percent, Glock’s research shows.

Seems like those individuals and families would be better off simply not paying so much in taxes in the first place.

“Such a system of taxing and returning the same amount of money is a pure waste,” Glock wrote, “since both the taxes and transfers limit households’ options, and there is a bureaucratic cost to circulating income from households to the government and back to households.”

Economically, those transfers and taxes simply cancel each other out and households are left—on a balance sheet, at least—no worse off than if the money had never been taken by the government and then returned.

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Maryland Medicaid Will Now Cover Sex Change Procedures and Treatments – Even Voice Lessons and Hair Removal

Maryland will now cover an unprecedented number of sex change procedures and treatments through the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program.

Even hair removal and voice lessons for transgender people can be covered.

A law that went into effect in the state on January 1 requires Medicaid to cover “gender-affirming treatment in a nondiscriminatory manner.”

This includes breast implants, fertility preservation services, facial cosmetic surgeries, hair alterations, and much more.

According to a report from the far-left LGBTQ Nation, “Voice therapy and lessons, scar and hair removal, hormone therapy, puberty blockers, fertility preservation, and ‘alterations’ to the abdomen, genitals, chest, buttocks, neck, and face are all included. Patients cannot be denied unless a healthcare professional decides the treatment would be detrimental to their health.”

Detransition procedures will also be covered.

Maryland Medicaid already covered mental health services, hormone replacement therapy, and sex change surgeries.

A transgender biological male who uses the name “Renee Lau” told CBS News that he is planning to take advantage of the change.

“I plan on having some surgeries and having consultations within the next two months. I would not believe the relief it is for me, because I never could have paid for [these services] out of pocket,” Lau said.

“It’s an emotional relief,” he added.

According to the report, “There are around 24,000 transgender adults in Maryland, according to research from UCLA’s Williams Institute. Of those, around 6,000 are enrolled in Medicaid.”

Maryland Governor Wed Moore signed an executive order protecting sex change treatments during a Pride event in the state last year.

“In the state of Maryland, nobody should have to justify their own humanity,” Moore said while signing the order.

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Welfare Is Great—for the Welfare Bureaucrats

A few months ago, Christie Gardner’s apartment was wrecked by a fire. Now she’s living with the damage left by the fire, smoke, water, and the firemen who helped save her apartment. “It’s a total disaster right now,” says Gardner. “They broke up all my bookshelves, my computer.” To make matters worse, her electricity has been turned off, so she has to get by with just a few battery-operated lamps and the waning hours of daylight.

But Gardner is no stranger to suffering. The six decade-plus resident of Washington, D.C., was forced to quit her job as a certified nursing assistant after she suffered from a workplace injury that left her needing a hip replacement. Still, Gardner remains positive, always reminding herself and those around her: “It will get better. God is good.”

Gardner now spends her time advocating for her community, volunteering for several nonprofit organizations, attending doctor appointments—and fighting the D.C. government for welfare benefits.

Like many in D.C. and throughout the country, Gardner has fallen over a welfare benefit cliff—it’s what happens when someone suddenly loses benefits because a slight increase in income pushes them over the welfare program’s income-eligibility threshold.

Since 2020, Gardner has seen some of her welfare benefits decline roughly 90 percent despite still being on disability. Among other changes, since 2020 her monthly SNAP benefits have decreased from almost $300 to just $30. Despite her best efforts, she has been unable to determine the precise cause of these reductions, though she says she thinks it could be due to her becoming eligible for and receiving Medicaid.

She turned to a local nonprofit, Bread for the City, that aims to empower low-income Washingtonians to escape poverty by providing food, clothing, medical care, and legal and social services. The organization also advocates for their clients by soliciting the D.C. government for needed reforms and by helping them understand what welfare programs they qualify for, how to apply, and how to avoid falling over their benefit cliffs.

The bureaucracy surrounding welfare programs makes them very expensive, inefficient, and confusing to navigate—costing taxpayers a lot of money while failing to provide meaningful help to those that are struggling economically. 

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America’s new arrivals now stage ‘bogus robberies’ to cheat the system

The fact that the hordes of new arrivals know all the loopholes and legal angles to scam our immigration laws and maximize benefits on our welfare system, while the working American does not, is really quite astounding, and tells me that there have to be a number of lawyers involved, telling these people what they can do to cheat American citizens out of a country. Check out this story, reported by the New York Post yesterday:

Two New York City men staged armed robberies at convenience stores and fast food joints across the United States to scheme immigration benefits, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Rambhai Patel, 36, and Balwinder Singh, 39, were arrested on Dec. 13 and both charged with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud for their alleged plot, which allowed the ‘victims’ of their robberies to apply for special immigration visas, Massachusetts prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, the pseudo robbery plots “involved a ‘robber’ threatening a store clerk with an apparent firearm before snatching cash from the register in front of a store’s surveillance camera.” These “victims” would then be eligible to qualify for a special visa (“U visa”), which if approved, provides the alien with:

• temporary immigration status including work authorization;

• temporary immigration status for qualifying family members of the victim; and

• the possibility of lawful permanent resident status.

So how much was this scheme allegedly raking in? From The New York Times:

Based on surveillance footage, cellular phone records and interviews with a cooperating witness, the F.B.I. concluded that purported victims each paid $10,000 to be ‘robbed’ in exchange for immigration ‘papers’ and that store owners received $1,500 to $2,000 for providing venues for fake crimes.

How do convenience store workers come up with $10k in extra cash? Isn’t that a minimum wage job? (In Massachusetts, minimum wage is only $15.) Could it be that these people are exploiting every other aspect of our socialist welfare system? Maximizing the loopholes and while we foot the bill? I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

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Illegal Immigrants With Anchor Babies Using Up More Welfare Than American Citizens

Households that are headed by illegal immigrants and have U.S.-born children are more likely to use welfare than are homes led by U.S.-born individuals, according to a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

At least 59.4 percent of illegal immigrant-led homes use one or more welfare programs, compared with 39 percent of households headed by people born in the United States, according to the Dec. 19 report.

High rates of welfare use among illegal immigrants “primarily reflect their generally lower education levels and their resulting low-incomes, coupled with the large share who have U.S.-born children who are eligible for all welfare programs from birth,” the report reads.

“More than half of all illegal immigrant households have one or more U.S.-born children.”

Children born to illegal immigrants in the United States, also known as “anchor babies,’ are considered to have automatic birthright citizenship even though the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t explicitly ruled on the matter. Illegal immigrants can’t access most welfare programs, a restriction that eases for their children who are born in the country.

“The American welfare system is designed in large part to help low-income families with children, which describes a large share of immigrants,” CIS states in the report.

A dozen states offer Medicaid to all low-income children regardless of immigration status. Such children also have access to various government food and meal programs.

Programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program, free or subsidized lunch and breakfast for students, and Medicaid for children (Children’s Health Insurance Program) were “explicitly created for minors,” the report states.

The CIS report is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

“The reality is that illegal immigrants are included in the SIPP, a large share of them are poor, and they or their U.S.-born children have welfare eligibility; and many take advantage of this eligibility,” CIS stated.

“A very large share of immigrants come to America, have children, struggle to provide for them, and so turn to taxpayers for support. This can be seen as especially problematic given that there is already a large number of Americans who are also struggling to provide for their children.”

According to data from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the total number of U.S.-born children of illegal aliens in the United States as of June stood at 5.78 million, a population more than two times that of Chicago.

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3 Out Of 5 Illegal Alien Households Are Supported By Taxpayer-Funded Welfare

A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals that almost 60% of all illegal aliens households in the United States are benefiting from at least one form of taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.

Breitbart reports that the study, written by CIS’ Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler, found that illegal aliens households, as well as legal immigrants, use “significantly more” welfare than actual American citizens. Of illegal aliens currently occupying land in the U.S., 59% are on welfare that is funded by legal American citizens; 52% of legal immigrants are also using welfare. Meanwhile, less than 40% of American citizens use welfare.

Among the most common forms of welfare for illegals are food stamps, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

“This is primarily because the American welfare system is designed in large part to help low-income families with children, which describes a large share of immigrants,” the study explains.

“Compared to households headed by the United States-born, immigrant-headed households have especially high use of food programs (36 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), Medicaid (37 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (16 percent vs. 12 percent for the U.S.-born),” CIS continues.

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San Francisco Mayor London Breed Calls for Mandatory Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients

San Francisco Mayor London Breed proposed a plan which would require welfare recipients to undergo  drug testing and engage in treatment programs.

The announcement comes as the city deals with an average of three overdose deaths a day, Breitbart News reported. 

The new initiative would require those receiving County Adult Assistance Programs (CAAP) to be tested for drug use and participate in treatment programs, Fox News Digital reported.  

“San Francisco is a city of compassion, but also a city that demands accountability,” Breed said in a statement. “We fund a wide range of services, and we want to help people get the care they need but under current state law, local governments lack tools to compel people into treatment. This initiative aims to create more accountability and help get people to accept the treatment and services they need.”  

To combat the open air drug dealings in the Tenderloin district, California Gov. Gavin Newsom began pulling officers from the California highway patrol to make arrests, Breitbart News reported.

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Iowa Bill Would Ban SNAP Recipients From Buying Meat

A bill introduced earlier this month in the Iowa Legislature — the country’s top red meat-producing state — would ban people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from buying meat and a lot of other typical grocery foods as well.

The bill, House File 3, has 39 co-sponsors in the Iowa House and is led by House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican. Pat Grassley is the grandson of Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving member of the Senate Agriculture Committee — the committee that writes the farm bill, including SNAP rules, in Congress.

Under the bill, SNAP recipients would be restricted to buying foods that are approved under a separate USDA food-aid program, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. WIC requires aid recipients to buy from a specific list of approved items that includes staples such as infant formula, cereal, milk, bread, juices, canned foods and baby foods.

WIC doesn’t allow people to buy products such as packaged meat, or frozen or processed foods.

“I don’t think the 39 co-sponsors of this bill know just how restrictive this is, and that it would ban meat,” said Luke Elzinga, chairman of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, and the policy and advocacy manager for a network of food pantries run by the Des Moines Area Religious Council. “Under this bill, no ground beef, no chicken, no pork in the state of Iowa. I just can’t believe that they knew that was what it was when the bill was introduced.”

According to USDA’s Livestock Slaughter report released Thursday, Iowa remained the No. 1 state for commercial red-meat production for December, largely because of its dominant position in pork processing. The Iowa Legislature bill would basically prohibit SNAP benefits in the state from being used to buy any pork products.

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After U.S. Soldiers Were Told to Go On Food Stamps, Congress Finds Another $12 Billion for Ukraine

Congressional lawmakers agreed to a deal that would provide another $12 billion in aid to Ukraine, which would bring the total military and economic resources provided to over $66 billion.

The news follows the Senate passing a $40 billion aid package in May, along with a $14 billion package in March.

President Biden earlier this month asked Congress for an additional $11.7 billion in aid for Ukraine, with Congress, in turn, seems to be jumping at his behest.

As a reminder, also earlier this month the Army told active-duty American soldiers to go on food stamps if they were unable to afford food thanks to inflation. 

Food stamps for American soldiers, endless billions for Ukraine. This is your country now.

Reuters reports that the funding agreement for Ukraine would address a variety of financial needs for Ukraine, including the hope that it would “reduce future energy costs.”

Meanwhile, the White House which had been touting lower gas prices despite them being well over the national average when Biden took office, has suddenly gone quiet. Why? Because they’re going back up again.

Biden and Congress won’t do anything to address American energy woes, but as long as Ukraine keeps showing a little leg, the political strip club patrons on the left and right will continue to shell out dollar bills.

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Former Gov. Phil Bryant helped Brett Favre secure welfare funding for USM volleyball stadium, texts reveal

Text messages entered Monday into the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit over the welfare scandal reveal that former Gov. Phil Bryant pushed to make NFL legend Brett Favre’s volleyball idea a reality.

The texts show that the then-governor even guided Favre on how to write a funding proposal so that it could be accepted by the Mississippi Department of Human Services – even after Bryant ousted the former welfare agency director John Davis for suspected fraud.

“Just left Brett Favre,” Bryant texted nonprofit founder Nancy New in July of 2019, within weeks of Davis’ departure. “Can we help him with his project. We should meet soon to see how I can make sure we keep your projects on course.”

When Favre asked Bryant how the new agency director might affect their plans to fund the volleyball stadium, Bryant assured him, “I will handle that… long story but had to make a change. But I will call Nancy and see what it will take,” according to the filing and a text Favre forwarded to New.

The newly released texts, filed Monday by an attorney representing Nancy New’s nonprofit, show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility.

Bryant has for years denied any close involvement in the steering of welfare funds to the volleyball stadium, though plans for the project even included naming the building after him, one text shows.

New, a friend of Bryant’s wife Deborah, ran a nonprofit that was in charge of spending tens of millions of flexible federal welfare dollars outside of public view. What followed was the biggest public fraud case in state history, according to the state auditor’s office. Nonprofit leaders had misspent at least $77 million in funds that were supposed to help the needy, forensic auditors found.

New pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts related to the scheme, and Davis awaits trial. But neither Bryant nor Favre have been charged with any crime.

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