Quote Originally Posted by Bailey Guns View Post
The numbers may be slightly different but the reality is the same.

Of course, some types of gov't assistance are necessary. The bottom line is there are far too few people paying to support far too many.
That, I can agree with. There are 13M unemployed and quite a few of the 15M on welfare I'd like to see to have jobs.


Half the country carries the weight of the other half.
Not even close to the truth.

Repost:
Here's an idea of who those 47% are, based on a little research from as non-partisan sites as I could find:

The 47% figure is from the 2009 tax year, which was the year in which the US suffered from its worst recession ever, and the 47% is the number of Americans not represented on a taxable return, so that includes stay at home moms and children.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/19/...-income-taxes/

For the 2009 tax year, the government granted a $500 per worker tax credit (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) that phased downward after $75k for singles and $150k income for couples, along with improved child credit, earned income credit, increased tax credits for college students and around $8k in tax credits to first time home buyers, among other benefits. With all these tax credits, it's not a surprise that fewer people owed income tax than before.

Current US population is around 300 million, so 47% is about 140 million Americans.

Current welfare recipients (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) number about 15 million. Over half of those stay on welfare for less than two years. It's statistically likely that a substantial portion of these recipients are minors and not eligible to work.

Social Security pays out money to just over 38 million retired folks a month. Disabled recipients including the blind and wounded veterans were another 12 million, 3 million or so survivor children also receive SS benefits. EDIT: if half of your SS benefits plus your other gross income is more than $25,000 ($32,000 if married filing jointly), then you will need to file a return.

Read more: http://www.mydollarplan.com/money-fi...#ixzz26sj25W5e

Current unemployment figures show that 13 million people in the workforce don't have sufficient employment. Granted this number is an estimate and could be higher, but let's use it for our calculations. It's simple math, so you can modify it for your own views.

Given that welfare recipients and Social Security recipients likely don't pay federal income tax taxes, and neither do most of the unemployed, then of the 140 million Americans that weren't represented on a taxable return, about 60 million of them didn't get welfare, didn't collect Social Security and weren't on the lists of unemployed.

Rough numbers, but well within credibility, I'd warrant. I haven't included full time students, but I'm still looking for the data.
Kinda curious what you have against all those retirees, unemployed and working poor.