Thanks to a lot of hard work by the Heritage Foundation, who recently released the results of a very informative study that it conducted, we can now very plainly see that which has been the direct result of Barry's "Hope and Change" mentality. The study shows how it is that the American public's dependence on the federal government has literally exploded over the course of the first two short years of Barry "Almighty's" reign, shooting up 23%. According to the study, there are 67 Million Americans who are now relying on one federal program or another. Is that not amazing? Is this what Barry meant when he said to us that if elected he intended to "fundamentally transform" America? It has become increasingly obvious that Barry is very determined in his efforts to get as many people as possible very firmly attached to the government teat.
The conservative think tank's annual Index of "Dependence on Government" tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that are "traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families." And it should come as no big surprise here, that the data shows the increase that has taken place under Barry "Almighty" is the biggest two-year jump since back during the days when Jimmy "The Bonehead" Carter was president. Barry has picked up where that dunce Carter left off, and can said to be doing nothing more that serving out Carter's second term. But it's plain to see that Barry has succeeded in taking things to a whole new level, with him essentially being a Carter on steroids. And the results have been horrendous and do not bode well for our ever being able to get back on any semblance of sound fiscal footing.
According to the study, the most recent rise that has taken place has been driven primarily by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps. "You can't get around the fact that policy decisions made over the past two years, on top of those made over the past several decades, are having a large effect on the pace of growth of the index," said William Beach, who authored the Heritage study. Dependence on the government has climbed steadily since 1962, when the index stood at 19. By 1980, the index had risen to 100. And in 2010, the last year for which the data are available, it stood at 294. I think it safe to say that hat under the regime of Barry "Almighty" what we've seen taking place is the equivalent of throwing gasoline on the fire.
The D.C.-based Heritage Foundation has produced the index for nine years. The report also found that spending on "dependence programs" accounts for more than 70% of the entire federal budget. That, too, is up, and very dramatically so. In 1990, for example, the figure stood at 48.5%, and in 1962 just over a quarter of federal spending went to dependence programs. At the same time, fewer Americans pay income taxes, the report notes. And despite Barry's rhetoric about the rich paying their fair share, an amazing statistic is the fact that almost half, or 49.5 percent, of Americans didn't pay any income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which the researchers have data. Back in the late 1960s, we had a much smaller "parasite" class with only 12% of Americans being able to escape from having to pay any federal income tax.
Some other interesting findings of the study:
1) The number of people dependent on the federal government shot up 7.5% over the past two years.
2) In 2010, for the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income.
3) The dependency index has dipped only seven times in the past 49 years, three of which were under President Reagan and two under President Clinton.
4) Some observers say the rise in dependence under Obama is merely a reflection of the deep and long recession.
5) But Beach says his team's research shows that economic effects account for only one-fifth of the change in the index.
Now one would think that it would be plainly obvious, even to Democrats, that we simply cannot go on this way. It's simply impossible. Sadly, it may already be too late, which is in itself a very scary proposition. So my friends, it would seem that we all have a very important decision to make. We know for an absolute fact that the only possible outcome that can result from this little joyride that we're currently on is going to be one Hell of a wreck. There is now no way to avoid the approaching crash, all we can hope to do now is to try to come up with some way of cushioning that final impact. Now we can chose to ignore things and the inevitable disaster that we know is coming, or we can start weaning ourselves off government entitlements, as painful as that might be, in the hopes of at least slowing things down before that final impact and hopefully limiting the number of casualties. We have approximately 8 months to decide.
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