Obama Will Spend More on Welfare in the Next Year Than Bush Spent on Entire Iraq War, Study Reveals
As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama's proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush's war spending by more than $260 billion.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
By Fred Lucas

President Barack Obama making announcement canceling missile defense shield. (AP photo)
(CNSNews.com) – As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion.

“Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” then-Sen. Barack Obama told a Charleston, W.V., crowd in March 2008. “This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.”

During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.

Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.

In that same West Virginia speech last year, Obama said, “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.”

The Heritage study says, “Applying that same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.”

The welfare reform package of 1996 only targeted one program, which was Aid for Families with Dependent Children, pushing work requirements for recipients to encourage them to get off the rolls. There are still 70 different welfare programs spread across 14 different federal agencies, said Robert Rector, senior research fellow in domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, who co-wrote the study.

“The average person says I thought we ended welfare. Well, it’s a good thing we ended it, otherwise we’d be spending some real money,” Rector joked while speaking about the report on Tuesday. “Reform was grossly oversold by Clinton and the Republicans. It reformed one program out of 70. Medicaid, public housing, the Earned Income Tax Credit were not reformed.”

According to his White House budget proposal, President Barack Obama will increase annual federal welfare spending by one-third, from $522.4 billion to $697 billion in his first fiscal year. Adjusted for inflation, the combined two-year increase of $263 billion is greater than any increase in welfare spending in history.

By 2014, annual spending on welfare programs will reach $1 trillion for the fiscal year.

“One in seven in total federal and state dollars now goes to welfare. But this is a completely unknown story,” Rector said. “This is not being reported. No one knows Obama is spending $10 trillion on welfare.”

Welfare spending has taken its toll on the federal debt. Since the beginning of the “war on poverty,” $15.9 trillion has been spent on welfare programs. The total cost of every war in American history, starting with the American Revolution, is $6.4 trillion when adjusted for inflation.

Welfare has been the fastest growing part of the federal government’s spending, increasing by 292 percent from 1989 to 2008. That’s compared to Social Security and Medicare, which grew 213 percent, the study says.

Adjusted for inflation, welfare is 5 percent of the gross domestic product today. It was only 1.2 percent of GDP in 1965, the report says. Also, over the next decade, $1.5 trillion in welfare benefits will be paid to low-skilled immigrants.

Still, high levels of poverty are reflected by the U.S. Census Bureau because the bureau counts only 4 percent of the total welfare spending as income when it calculates poverty. Thus, most discussions on poverty begin on the virtual premise that welfare does not exist, the study says.

“None of the $800 billion being spent is counted as income, so the Census comes back and they say, ‘Oh my goodness, we have 40 million poor people. We need to spend more money,’” Rector explained. “That is a game the taxpayer can never win.”

Changing how the money is spent could go a long way in achieving better results, the study says.

“Annual means tested welfare spending is more than sufficient to eliminate poverty in the United States,” the study reports. “If welfare spending were converted into case benefits, the sum would be nearly four times the amount needed to raise the income of all poor families above the official poverty line.”

How else will he get the votes? There are to many on welfare. They want the easy way out. And Obama Is sucking up to them. Making him feel in charge and needed.

And people wonder why I hate the poor so much! becasue these azzholes vote jack offs like Obama to office.

So many people are looking for a free hand out and her comes Obama with free handouts.

fuquing politicians! I so want to cram them all into a rocket and fire it into the sun!

i didn't agree with bushes war spending either...whats the lessor of two evils?

It is all dependent on how you look at this.

The war is (In theory) about kicking our enemy's azz (Taliban, Al Quieda, etc. Those who have the desire and wherewithal to do us harm and kill us) but with Obama's social spending this is different.

He is Vote Mongering clearly. Why has he not ended the war? I doubt he can end it. We may not be at war with Iraq but we are still there. Worst is all his social spending is not solving anything. If anything it is inflaming the problem.

At least the war is supposed to serve a purpose (COUGH COUGH).

Obama is in bed with the very people profiting from this mess. If you want to point a finger at the guilty point it at people who are making fortunes at the expense of us all!

Making money off of the suffering of others is pretty bogus morally. Unfortunately in an economic sense the whole idea is to profit from anything at any cost. If you can make a profit from people dying and you don't care you get in the business of death. That is economics. There are people who do make a lot of money killing other people for a whole host of reasons.

Our economy is in the crapper and look at how Banks for the most part have been doing. Gotta love their bonuses and dividend! The Banks have been scamming us for YEARS! And worst Americans are too blind to see this.

But back to Obama. Mr. Hussein seems to think money comes from some magical printing press. EVERYTHING he is doing is a mirror image of the 1930s. You cannot fix things by just throwing money. His Changes have no balance. His Changes have all been detrimental. The whole time the Experts he surrounded himself with are lying when they say everything is fine. And the media blows this foul BS in our face.

And he hasn't got the BALLZ to build us up to square off in China's face if we have to! We don't need to invade them. We just nuke them and make sure they cannot nuke us or anyone else for that matter. it is called projection of force and China is getting some big ideas going on in Asia. They are already fuquing with Vietnam pretty hard over oil drilling off of island on Vietnam's coast line! And they still have greedy eyes on Taiwan. Worst is they sit as head chair on the UN security council. How about Tibet eh?

Obama is a sell out like Clinton.

That is the biggest difference at least as I see it.

I didn't agree either(and still don't...even though i'm in the service) They are both as bad.



But I do know that if it was Sarah Palin with the exact same policies Obama is passing right now she would be crucified.

sometimes the lefties aren't very fair and balanced...

My folks spent more on being there for US than fighting others,,,no problem for me there.



Spending has to be cut back, but the economy also needs to stabilize again.

agreed...

The economy will never stabilize as long as we continue to spend more than we earn, and consume more than we produce.

Sarah Palinwill be crusified anyways......and probably rightly so as I do not see her as anymore a worthy candidate than Obama...............she is two faced IMO and will continue to be so.....she was actually worried about Alaska at one point and don't think she cares so much anymore and has turned the bend into complete politicianism

Agreed

simple question - which side did the study???

i'm going on welfare,unemployment and disability...the triple crown

wont be eligible for all three,,,,in most cases

Obama spent more in the first 100 days then President Bush did in 8 years.

he spent more, he WORKED more,,,,and he will accomplish more

Working hard on the Golf Course, Hawaii, Florida, Chicago, Las Vegas, Broadway plays etc.

He is the Vacationer and Chief.

26 days to bush's 66, in the first year