One Trillion Dollar Transfer

From the Independent Institute:

How Goes the War on Poverty?

Americans transfer about one trillion dollars a year to low-income families at the bottom fifth of the U.S. income distribution. Putting that into perspective, one trillion dollars is more than twice the total spent annually on national defense, ten times as much as was spent on redistributive policies in the 1950s (adjusting for inflation), and about equal to the total before-tax cash income of middle-income households, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Edgar K. Browning, author of Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit.

Had that money gone directly to those poor families--with no "leakage" by the federal bureaucracy middleman--that trillion would break down to about $81,000 for a family of three--higher than the median income of all American families and far greater than the poverty threshold of $15,577, according to Browning.

Those sizable sums should prompt Americans to ask rather obvious questions: Are poor Americans more independent and self-supporting than before the War on Poverty? Are children born into poor households better off than they were before the War on Poverty? Has the trillion-dollar expenditure reduced inequality? Are egalitarians grateful to Americans' sacrifices in the name of redistribution, or do they continually complain about rising inequality?

"The answers to these questions, I submit, paint a bleak picture of the accomplishments of the American welfare state," writes Browning in a new op-ed. "While a nuanced interpretation of the evidence may identify a few positive returns on our 'investment,' we have a right to expect a lot more for a trillion dollars a year."

Just more proof that government is not free of charge. The machine of big government manages to consume huge sums of money that orginally had good intentions. Just wait until that machine gets its hands on health care.