What programs are we cutting actual spending versus programs that are increasing at a slower rate. And with all the money Biden spent on top of all money we were spending do you have a link that shows what you say to be true.
I have a single mother daughter, who struggled to leave the social safety net, because she felt until she had the skills to earn more than $40K, it wasn't worth the time away from her daughter for the marginal increase in income she got over the social safety net... and this was in conservative Florida.
In California one of the most progressive liberal states that has tried virtually every form of spending to raise up the poor, we have the highest cost adjusted poverty rate in the country.
We started the "war on poverty" in the 60s and since have spent trillions. The truth is that after knocking a few percent off the poverty rate, it has held to between 11-13% for over 50 years.
Government simply can't fix poverty. Nations all over the world have tried and it does not work. You can make poverty more "comfortable", but it is still poverty.
But there is hope. It's called a job. Now bear with me for a second...
Studies show that if even one family member has a full-time job, the poverty rate drops from 11-12% down to 3-4%. No social program in history has had that kind of results. Just as importantly, there are 11 million unfilled jobs in the US and there are 7.4 million families in the US. Let that sink in.
Where we agree is that we need to approach poverty not as a condition... but an outcome. For most people, poverty is due to one of three causes...
Disability including old age... we spend plenty in social spending to help this group. Yang calculated that if we took all of the government social spending Federal and state and eliminated the overhead of all the government programs that go with and created one simply joint Federal/state program that funded the disabled, we could provide health care and around $4K a month in disability/social security income to each person who qualified and still have enough cash to fund a program of "transition" for people who find themselves unemployed for the moment. The key words are "for the moment".
To qualify for the disability income, you would get evaluated by a physician to document how disabled you were. That would be used to determine if you could work in some capacity. If the latter were true than the $4000 would be replaced with an "income match" designed to encourage you work as much as you could.
The next level of the program is to get you on a "career ladder". Germany does this pretty well, if you are not "college material", Germany makes sure you graduate high school with a vocational trade capable of earning you a decent income and one in which there are plenty of jobs available. So, as long as you are "able" to work, you graduate high school with the ability to earn a middle-class income.
Another side benefit of everyone working is the more people work, the cheaper things are (in effect, if more people are working and making stuff, then there is more stuff that has to get sold).
During Trump's presidency, the unemployment rate got so low, that companies were hiring people they normally wouldn't hire and training them including high school dropouts and felons. The result is several states had to close some prisons due to a lack of demand. Trump also reformed the sentencing laws to correct for the inequitable sentences that arose from Biden's sponsored crime bill from the early 90s.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/20/trump-releases-pot-prisoners-jailed-under-bidens-1994-crime-bill/
So, there is a way to reduce crime and poverty without adding more government entitlement programs and instead reducing them. But it starts with separating those that can work and getting them to work and using those savings to care for the disabled in a straightforward way.
