Contrary to stereotypes, US welfare benefits are more generous than those in most European countries

Contrary to stereotypes, US welfare benefits are more generous than those in most European countries: http://t.co/RCIlsXqtEC #WorkvsWelfare

— Cato Institute (@CatoInstitute) September 8, 2015

Greenspan says social welfare 'extremely dangerous.' Agreed. Let's begin by slashing corporate welfare first.

Alan Greenspan said one issue is more important to the U.S. economy now than monetary policy: http://t.co/I4m5hIPUvZ pic.twitter.com/8b2t4GFXaI

— CNBC (@CNBC) July 29, 2015

Greenspan says social welfare 'extremely dangerous.' Agreed. Let's begin by slashing corporate welfare first. http://t.co/bheLSTz9fD

— Jerry Robinson (@FTMDaily) July 30, 2015

GREENSPAN SOUNDS ALARM ON GOV'T SPENDING... http://t.co/L0fsdHxd3z

— SavageNation (@SavageNation) July 30, 2015

It’s never enough. American taxpayers have surrendered billions and billions and billions of dollars to the social-justice-spender-in-chief. But it’s never, ever enough.

For your lunchtime reading: Debunking Obama’s bilious Baltimore babble==> http://t.co/scbbU7qSta pic.twitter.com/A1zsg1dQ2H

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) April 29, 2015

The latest paroxysm of urban violence, looting, and recriminations in Baltimore prompted President Obama on Tuesday to trot out his frayed Blame The Callous, Tight-Fisted Republicans card. After dispensing with an obligatory wrist-slap of toilet paper-and Oreo-filching “protesters” who are burning Charm City to the ground (he hurriedly changed it to “criminals and thugs” mid-word), the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner got down to his usual business: hectoring his political opponents and grousing that America hasn’t forked over enough money for him to make the “massive investments” needed to “make a difference right now.”

...In December 2014, the White House unveiled nearly $1 billion in new “investments” to “expand access to high-quality early childhood education to every child in America” from “birth and continuing to age 5.”

That’s all on top of the $6 billion government-funded national service and education initiative known as the SERVE America Act, which was enacted less than a month after the nearly $1 trillion stimulus with the help of a majority of Big Government Senate Republicans. The SERVE America Act included $1.1 billion to increase the investment in national service opportunities; $97 million for Learn and Serve America Youth Engagement Zones; and nearly $400 million for the Social Innovation Fund and Volunteer Generation Fund.

The “social innovation” slush fund was intended to “create new knowledge about how to solve social challenges in the areas of economic opportunity, youth development and school support, and healthy futures, and to improve our nation’s problem-solving infrastructure in low-income communities.” The biggest beneficiaries? Obama’s progressive cronies.

Apparently, the richly funded “social innovators” haven’t reached the looter-prone neighborhoods of Baltimore yet. But it’s not ideologically bankrupt Obama’s fault. It’s ours.

Riot-Plagued Baltimore Is a Catastrophe Entirely of the Democratic Party’s Own Making http://t.co/ezG53NmFCi pic.twitter.com/Gqt67EQX3A

— National Review (@NRO) April 29, 2015

The lure of something for nothing grows as morality crumbles

◼ Obama’s Free Stuff Army - Robert Knight/Washington Times

Since someone has to pay for these expensive, new entitlements to the Free Stuff Army, Mr. Obama has proposed yet another “tax the rich” scheme that, if enacted (which is unlikely) would eventually plunder working-class families. To liberals, that’s what tax “reform” is all about.

◼ The plunder of society’s moral capital. - Discussion at Lucianne

Fresh from offering “free” health care, “free” phones and “free” food to the masses, he’s upped the bribery to “free” community college tuition and “free” child care.

Major Newspaper Pulls Cartoon Critical of Obama’s Immigration Reform After Many Call It ‘Racist’

Yes that's right @indystar Gary Varvel that is EXACTLY what the President said last night. pic.twitter.com/mgyhAckXSF (via @indybrewchef)

— Geoffrey D. Wessel (@gdwessel) November 21, 2014

◼ After the Indianapolis Star published a political cartoon on Friday that was decidedly against President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration reform, the paper’s executive editor Jeff Taylor said many readers were offended and called it “racist.”

Says Taylor: Cartoons are seldom intended to be read literally. And Gary did not intend this one to be viewed that way. He intended to illustrate the view of many conservatives and others that the president’s order will encourage more people to pour into the country illegally.

The illegal immigration issue evokes strong opinions and emotions. And it’s important to encourage a vigorous public debate on issues of this magnitude, but with respectful discourse. That is what we believe at IndyStar and that is what we will continue to do – to publish views from all sides as we explore the important issues that will define the future of our nation, state and city.

“It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

◼ The decline of the Democratic party has arrived - Robert W. Merry/National Interest Magazine

(S)ometimes there are genuine signs in the election returns that something significant may be happening. And the returns of November 4 may reflect such a development. Two articles written since the Republican blowout explore these intriguing signs.

One was a New York Times commentary, published on November 11, by Thomas B. Edsall, who has few peers as a political analyst of the left. Entitled ◼ “The Demise of the White Democratic Voter,” the piece pulled together voting and polling statistics suggesting that the Democratic Party is in danger of losing the white vote almost entirely....

The next day the Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger weighed in with a piece entitled, ◼ “It Wasn’t Just Obama.” (image source) He covered much of the same territory as Edsall in assessing the significance of the election returns—the stunning GOP victory in Maryland, Scott Walker’s reelection in Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial wins in Massachusetts and Illinois. And he goes further in exploring the Democratic tax-and-spend policies that seemed to stir voter ire at the polls. Particularly noteworthy was the tax spree of Maryland’s outgoing Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley, who in two terms raised some forty taxes and fees. These included the corporate income tax, sales tax, personal income tax and a “millionaire’s tax,” as well as a passel of fees on license plates, liquor, fishing, birth and death certificates, “even something called ‘stormwater management fees’ based on the size of people’s roofs, driveways, patios and such.”

The Henninger observation overlaps significantly with the Edsall analysis, but goes a step further in identifying the underlying problem for Democrats. They have constructed a governing coalition—government bureaucrats, public employee unions, recipients of transfer payments—that requires more financial resources than the party can generate without alienating the middle class. You can’t govern without the middle class. Henninger captures it with the best line since election night: “It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham.” KEEP READING...

SHOCK FLASHBACK: Obama Says Illegal Immigration HURTS ‘Blue-Collar Americans,’ STRAINS Welfare [VIDEO]

◼ President Barack Obama once declared that an influx of illegal immigrants will harm “the wages of blue-collar Americans” and “put strains on an already overburdened safety net.” - Neil Munro/Daily Caller

Obama’s frank statements were written in 2006, as he was eying a run for the presidency.

Those worries are mainstream, according to recent polls. Obama now presides over a very porous southern border, and he’s allowed 130,000 Central American migrants across since October 2013.

Via executive order, he is also about to provide work permits to at least 3 million illegal immigrants, allowing them to compete against the very Americans — black, white, Latino and Asian — who he once said would be harmed by such a move.

The new work permits would be in addition to the 600,000 work permits given to younger illegals under the 2012 “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program.

Roughly 4 million Americans will enter the job market this year.

Careful observers of Obama’s modern-day immigration rhetoric will note that he does not discuss the impact millions of formerly-illegal immigrants would have on the wages of American workers.

◼ Using Executive Order on Immigration, Obama Would Reverse Long-Held Stance - New York Times

President Obama is poised to ignore stark warnings that executive action on immigration would amount to “violating our laws” and would be “very difficult to defend legally.”

Those warnings came not from Republican lawmakers but from Mr. Obama himself.

Exclusive: $7,000+ Food Stamp Balance

Should there be a limit on how much tax payers dollars can be given to someone on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program?

Do You Live In A Death Spiral State?

◼ Don’t buy a house in a state where private sector workers are outnumbered by folks dependent on government. - William Baldwin/Forbes

Thinking about buying a house? Or a municipal bond? Be careful where you put your capital. Don’t put it in a state at high risk of a fiscal tailspin.

Eleven states make our list of danger spots for investors. They can look forward to a rising tax burden, deteriorating state finances and an exodus of employers. The list includes California, New York, Illinois and Ohio, along with some smaller states like New Mexico and Hawaii.

If your career takes you to Los Angeles or Chicago, don’t buy a house. Rent.

If you have money in municipal bonds, clean up the portfolio. Sell holdings from the sick states and reinvest where you’re less likely to get clipped. Nebraska and Virginia are unlikely to give their bondholders a Greek haircut. California and New York are comparatively risky.

Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.

Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.

But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind....

California in retreat on social service spending

◼ In his new budget, a frustrated Gov. Jerry Brown cuts a swath through California's renowned assistance programs. - LA Times

Reporting from Sacramento -- During his first governorship more than three decades ago, Jerry Brown warned that California was entering an "era of limits."

The austere state budget he proposed this week is a stark acknowledgment that the Golden State has now reached them. The Democratic governor's spending plan takes large steps toward dismantling much of California's once-vaunted social safety net.

Brown proposes cutting welfare services again as the state continues its struggle to shake off the effects of a deep and persistent recession. He would continue years of reductions in Medi-Cal, child care and home health aid. He would eliminate the Healthy Families program, which was a significant expansion of healthcare in California when enacted in 1997 and serves nearly 900,000 children.

Brown was visibly frustrated as he detailed what he described as the "tough medicine" California needs to balance its books but said a $9.2-billion deficit had forced his hand.

"California government is a very generous, compassionate political jurisdiction," he said. "When we have to reduce our spending, that spending is going to have to come from programs that are doing good."

He added: "I can't figure out any better way. This is the best I can do."