For those who think Systemic Racism Isn't Real or no longer exists...

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

1 minute ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Meanwhile, the city also recorded 38,645 violent crimes and 64,096 property crimes, according to New York Police Department data.

This equates to roughly 5.76 murders, 456 violent crimes and 757 property crimes per 100,000 residents in 2021 in NYC.

What do you think those numbers would be if the DA didn’t change a lot of these crimes to misdemeanors?

[icanthearyou 4,463]

7 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Because of the unruly behavior happening in those cities.  Last weekend a bunch of teenagers ransacked Chicago are the Mayor and Mayor elect downplayed the rioting.  In NYC 327 looters have been arrested approximately 6000 times and are still on the street doing it again.

How politically convenient.  You are as disingenuous as you are dishonest.  Again, these cities aren't even in the top 10 in violent crime.

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

3 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

How politically convenient.  You are as disingenuous as you are dishonest.  Again, these cities aren't even in the top 10 in violent crime.

You asked, I answered.  Sorry you didn’t Ike the answer.  You do know that 27 of the top 30 dangerous cities are run by Democrats don’t you.  Another politically convenient fact.

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

they let him off without filing charges but i believe they came back after the uproar and finally arrested him. i would have to look into that more.

They had to let him go after 24 hours.  He will be arrested in good time, no doubt.  By the way, do you know when the FBI is going to release the Manifesto of the Nashville School shooter?  Does the Biden DOJ want to bury that?

[icanthearyou 4,463]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

You asked, I answered.  Sorry you didn’t Ike the answer.  You do know that 27 of the top 30 dangerous cities are run by Democrats don’t you.  Another politically convenient fact.

Please list these.  I see the majority in red states.  Crime isn't a function of politics it is a function of poverty and,,, red states have the lead in that metric as well.

Punishment is a deterrent to crime but,,, truly mitigating crime means mitigating poverty.

[aubiefifty 16,887]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

They had to let him go after 24 hours.  He will be arrested in good time, no doubt.  By the way, do you know when the FBI is going to release the Manifesto of the Nashville School shooter?  Does the Biden DOJ want to bury that?

i can be a mean and ornery ol cuss but i am always about the truth. always...............

[aubiefifty 16,887]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

You asked, I answered.  Sorry you didn’t Ike the answer.  You do know that 27 of the top 30 dangerous cities are run by Democrats don’t you.  Another politically convenient fact.

all cities have repubs as well but go ahead and give them a pass. also the repubs are the ones handing out guns for anyone that can sign their name so that will not hunt. man you folks kill me. you except no responsibility or blame when it is due. you guys just deflect.

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

19 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

Please list these.  I see the majority in red states.  Crime isn't a function of politics it is a function of poverty and,,, red states have the lead in that metric as well.

Punishment is a deterrent to crime but,,, truly mitigating crime means mitigating poverty.

It’s not the states as much as it is the Mayor and DA, just look at New Orleans.  Crime is a function of what the criminals believe they can get away with.  Poverty does not automatically mean crime, but character can be a contributing factor.  I would love to win the war on poverty.  Having a two parent household that believes in family values and education would go a long way.  It doesn’t mean a single parent household can’t do it, it is just many times more difficult.

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

23 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

all cities have repubs as well but go ahead and give them a pass. also the repubs are the ones handing out guns for anyone that can sign their name so that will not hunt. man you folks kill me. you except no responsibility or blame when it is due. you guys just deflect.

Republicans can take responsibility for the cities they run, no pass on them.  The Republicans are following the Constitution, what people do with that right is on them.  Do you blame republicans for freedom of speech.  It seems they are the only ones try to protect that right.  How about freedom of religion?  Again Republicans trying to protect that too.

Republicans have a lot to be concerned about, but right now Biden is in control and his policies are bad for America.

[aubiefifty 16,887]

4 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Republicans can take responsibility for the cities they run, no pass on them.  The Republicans are following the Constitution, what people do with that right is on them.  Do you blame republicans for freedom of speech.  It seems they are the only ones try to protect that right.  How about freedom of religion?  Again Republicans trying to protect that too.

Republicans have a lot to be concerned about, but right now Biden is in control and his policies are bad for America.

you have freedom to pursue ANY religion you desire hoss you just cannot shove it down someone elses throat am i right? and the constitution is all about separation between church and state. the right keeps pushing this to extremes but not all godly people are christian. and now facists are taking over religion which do not include anyone of color that i know of. hate has infiltrated christianity and you guys seem to be ok with that. so what gives?

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

23 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

you have freedom to pursue ANY religion you desire hoss you just cannot shove it down someone elses throat am i right? and the constitution is all about separation between church and state. the right keeps pushing this to extremes but not all godly people are christian. and now facists are taking over religion which do not include anyone of color that i know of. hate has infiltrated christianity and you guys seem to be ok with that. so what gives?

Yes, you have the freedom to pursue any religion you desire, but just because a religion exists doesn’t mean someone is shoving it down your throat.  Little known fact; the phrase separation between church and state is not found in the constitution.  It is established doctrine as religion is not mentioned in schools or some other government buildings.

The rest of you diatribe is a sad view of what America is.  I’m glad I don’t have that view of America.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

On 4/17/2023 at 7:24 PM, CoffeeTiger said:

I present to you McCurtain county, Oklahoma:

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/04/16/oklahoma-sheriff-and-commissioner-accused-of-racism-and-threats/70119918007/

 

Where the county Sheriff, a police investigator, a county commissioner, and the local jail administrator were caught on audio recording lamenting that being the Sheriff is harder now-a-days because you cant beat up Black people and take them down to the river and lynch them like you used to be able to do. They lamented that Black people have too many rights these days....more than other people they say. They followed that discussion up by talking about a reporter for the local newspaper that they apparent really hate because he's involved in a legal dispute with the county. They had a discussion about how the police investigator would like to beat him up, and then the Sheriff and Commissioner talked about how they could kill and bury the reporter and made mention of a 'killer' they know if Louisiana who could get the job done. 

 

4 different individuals (some sources are saying another county commissioner was present but did not take part in the discussion)....different areas of government and public service in the county and they all felt comfortable talking and joking about lynching Black people and killing journalists together in a group setting right after a county commission meeting....basically AT work. 

You think Black people in that county get treated fairly and face no racism from the police and government when their leaders are openly talking trash like this? How many more elected officials in the County believe the exact same as these people? How many people in local and state governments nationwide think like this?

 

Demographically, McCurtain County Oklahoma is 70% white, 9% black and voted 82% for Trump in 2020.

The Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has called for the resignation of all the individuals involved. The matter has also been given to the FBI for investigation. None of the involved parties have responded to requests for comment.

Resignation my a$$. Lock them up.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

7 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

Punishment is a deterrent to crime but,,, truly mitigating crime means mitigating poverty.

True statement. Props.

So you'd then agree the proliferation of DA's failing to indict crime at the level necessary is problematic?

Mitigating poverty begins where?  Education I presume? 

[icanthearyou 4,463]

15 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

I’m glad I don’t have that view of America.

Well yeah.  You're a better American than ever dam libtard put together.   You voted for Trump, twiced.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

On 4/18/2023 at 10:16 AM, creed said:

I think it's a good example of personal racism, but Systematic racism is cloudy. The discussion included systematically what "they" couldn't do anymore to black people. These were racist a-holes but it's not evident this was systematic racism although it very well exists in Oklahoma.

A really good example of systemic racism, in Oklahoma, would be how the Indian tribes are and have been treated. But they don't get the media press deserved at the moment.

 

This is probably the best comment/response in this thread and overlooked. 

[AuCivilEng1 11,015]

Systematic Racism is just the tip of the iceberg. Get a load of this segment by John Oliver when you get the chance. We are still dealing with slavery in some cases. 

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by AuCivilEng1

[icanthearyou 4,463]

23 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i can be a mean and ornery ol cuss but i am always about the truth. always...............

You're about as mean as a butterfly unless,,,, provoked.  Love you brother.

[aubiefifty 16,887]

On 4/18/2023 at 9:08 AM, JMWATS said:

Racism does still occur.  I can't even begin to imagine how State Representative Matthews treated her constituents.    

'Treat them like s***': US Senate candidate under fire for comments about white people | WCIV (abcnews4.com)

 

aren't you precious.she deserves to be called out for sure. she lost the election and i bet we can imagine why. i top your almost senator with two bug shots on trumps personal staff who where white nationals bannon and miller. and since trump took office and attended read my article and lets see if you are fair and will actually call trump out. i bet you don't..................what say yee?

 

Trump's history of support from white supremacist, far right groups

John Haltiwanger

7–9 minutes

---

• President Donald Trump's refusal to explicitly condemn white supremacist groups during Tuesday night's debate follows a similar pattern.
• Extremism experts warn that Trump gave a boost to the far-right group known as the Proud Boys by mentioning them during the debate.
• Trump's racist, xenophobic rhetoric has frequently been viewed as a source of encouragement by white nationalist and far-right extremist groups. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go.

President Donald Trump refused to explicitly condemn white supremacist groups during the first 2020 presidential debate on Tuesday, instead opting to issue a rallying cry to a far-right extremist group with a history of engaging in street violence. 

"Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?" debate moderator Chris Wallace asked. 

"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left," Trump said, after additional prompting from former Vice President Joe Biden.

The Proud Boys are a far-right group of self-described "western chauvinists." The group has rejected the notion that it promotes white supremacy, even as its leaders regularly share white nationalist memes and "maintain affiliations with known extremists," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC considers the Proud Boys to be a hate group.

The Anti-Defamation League describes the Proud Boys ideology as: "Misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups."

The Proud Boys have frequently been involved in street violence, and a former Proud Boys member helped organize the "Unite the Right" rally that prompted deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

After Trump's comments during the Tuesday night debate, far right groups took to social media to celebrate, and experts on extremism warned that the president essentially just helped the Proud Boys recruit.

Rita Katz, the executive director of SITE intelligence Group, which tracks far-right groups, told the Washington Post that Trump "legitimized" the Proud Boys in a way that "nobody in the community expected." 

"It's unbelievable. The celebration is incredible," Katz said. "In my 20 years of tracking terrorism and extremism, I never thought I'd see anything like this from a U.S. president."

The president on Friday claimed he doesn't know who the Proud Boys are, but the damage was already done. The group got a massive boost on social media and was trending topic on Twitter for most of Friday. 

As remarkable as it was to see a sitting US president dodge an opportunity to decry white supremacists while elevating a far-right extremist group, what happened on Tuesday was not an isolated incident for Trump.

For years, white supremacists have looked at Trump's racist, xenophobic rhetoric as a source of encouragement. And some of the most prominent far right groups have openly embraced and endorsed the president. 

Trump has not made a particularly strong effort to disavow their support, and his behavior has often aligned with their toxic worldviews. Earlier this month at a rally in Minnesota, for example, Trump told a crowd of nearly all white supporters that they have "good genes," echoing the views of neo-Nazis that white people are genetically superior. 

In 2016, the Ku Klux Klan's official newspaper endorsed Trump for president. The Trump campaign denounced the endorsement, even as Trump continued to spread disinformation on immigrants and refugees in an effort to dehumanize and villify them. 

Shortly after Trump won the election in 2016, white nationalists gathered for a conference in Washington to celebrate Trump's victory with Nazi salutes. Richard Spencer, a well-known neo-Nazi, in a speech opening up the conference said: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" 

 

Trump quickly disavowed Spencer, but his behavior did not change. The president put barring people from Muslim countries from the US at the top of his agenda after being inaugurated, despite slim evidence it would benefit US national security in a palpable way. 

In one of the most infamous moments of his presidency, Trump in August 2017 blamed "many sides" for deadly neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville. The president said there were "very fine people" on "both sides." Trump and his allies have since claimed that Democrats and the media have embellished his remarks after the white nationalist rally, but what he said is on video and can also be found on the White House website (which transcribes his public remarks). 

White nationalist groups were also encouraged by Trump's response to Charlottesville and the false equivalence he presented between violent neo-Nazis and counterprotesters. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke at the time celebrated Trump's remarks via Twitter, thanking the president for condemning the "leftist terrorists."

After the backlash to his initial remarks, Trump issued a more forceful condemnation of white nationalist groups. But it was too little too late. 

Amid ongoing protests over racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd, Trump has relied heavily on white supremacist ploys in an effort to boost his reelection campaign. The president has lauded supporters who've headed into Portland to confront and antagonize anti-racism protesters, which has already had deadly consequences. Meanwhile, he's decried those protesting racism as "terrorists" and praised violent crackdowns by law enforcement. 

Trump's condemnation of white supremacist groups has almost always been prompted by widespread backlash over comments he's made in concert with their ideologies. This pattern has played out over and over throughout his tenure, with virtually no changes in his overall behavior. As the US draws closer to Election Day, Trump appears to have abandoned the facade altogether. 

Former Vice President Joe Biden called Trump a "racist" to his face on the debate stage on Tuesday, and the president didn't flinch. 

[aubiefifty 16,887]

45 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

You're about as mean as a butterfly unless,,,, provoked.  Love you brother.

 we know i get wound up at times but since trump is slowly getting his due i have been much better. trump was more than just the economy and he has damn near wrecked this country.

[aubiefifty 16,887]

18 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yes, you have the freedom to pursue any religion you desire, but just because a religion exists doesn’t mean someone is shoving it down your throat.  Little known fact; the phrase separation between church and state is not found in the constitution.  It is established doctrine as religion is not mentioned in schools or some other government buildings.

The rest of you diatribe is a sad view of what America is.  I’m glad I don’t have that view of America.

if i am a muslim i do not want to be forced to sit through christian prayer. do you want to listen to muslim talking points? no you do not. now if you want to preach with a selective christian course i am all for it. see how easy that is?

[icanthearyou 4,463]

6 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

 we know i get wound up at times but since trump is slowly getting his due i have been much better. trump was more than just the economy and he has damn near wrecked this country.

Just remember, Trump is merely a symptom.  So many people willing to follow the fake tough guy act, the habitual liar, the phony, self serving populist.  That is the problem.  Well, that is the revelation of many problems.

[aubiefifty 16,887]

On 4/18/2023 at 11:56 AM, I_M4_AU said:

What do you think those numbers would be if the DA didn’t change a lot of these crimes to misdemeanors?

you look at things wrong. i can see right through you. those dirty colored folk getting away with murder with crooked lib DA's putting them back on the streets fudging the numbers. i bet you think blacks are lazy too? blacks been on welfare and hand me outs and are just killing this country. guess what. in most cases whites double blacks on any assistance. lets show some facts.

Americans Are Mistaken About Who Gets Welfare

Arthur Delaney, Ariel Edwards-Levy

7–8 minutes

---

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress may soon embark on a racially-fraught policy battle over “welfare.”

“We can lift our citizens from welfare, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity,” Trump said in his State of the Union address last week, the latest signal that Republicans want “welfare reform” this year.

Trump has often pandered to racists among his supporters. He said Mexico sends “rapists” to the United States and that there were some “fine people” among the neo-Nazis who staged a deadly protest last year in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the president said Mexican heritage made it impossible for a judge to be fair, House Speaker Paul Ryan called it the “textbook definition” of racist.

The word “welfare” is different. It’s a standard political term that Democrats, Republicans and journalists alike use ― though Republicans use it the most often. There’s nothing overtly racialized about welfare. You can even find it in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

And yet, the word is often loaded with racial meaning. As a new HuffPost/YouGov survey shows, much of the public has a distorted view of which groups receive the bulk of assistance from government programs. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say either that most welfare recipients are black, or that welfare recipiency is about the same among black and white people.

HuffPost

The numbers reflect a significant overestimation of the number of black Americans benefiting from the largest programs. Medicaid had more than 70 million beneficiaries in 2016, of whom 43 percent were white, 18 percent black, and 30 percent Hispanic. Of 43 million food stamp recipients that year, 36.2 percent were white, 25.6 percent black, 17.2 percent Hispanic and 15.5 percent unknown. (Food stamps are formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.)

In one sense, HuffPost’s survey asked an abstract question: The federal government doesn’t run a program that is actually called “welfare.” The word can describe any instance of the government helping people or businesses, though it’s most commonly used to describe programs that benefit the poor.

These days, to Republican lawmakers, welfare means Medicaid, food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Paul Ryan and hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives have said they want to make changes to those three programs this year under the banner of welfare reform.

Historically, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is probably the program that has most frequently been called welfare, as it was created in the famous “welfare reform” of 1996. As a result of that reform, the program today is much smaller than its predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and it only served 2.7 million people in 2016. Of those, 36.9 percent were Hispanic, 27.6 percent white, and 29.1 percent black ― meaning that if they had this particular program in mind, HuffPost’s survey respondents who said the number of white and black beneficiaries are “about the same” were basically right.

Survey respondents’ estimation of who receives welfare tracked closely to their estimation of who gets food stamps. Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents said the program’s recipients are mostly black or that there are as many black Americans as white Americans receiving benefits. Only 21 percent correctly said there are more white than black food stamp recipients.

“Across the programs people overestimate the share of recipients who are black,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy. “It’s not surprising because we all know people’s images of public benefits is driven by stereotype.”

Trump himself harbors mistaken views of who receives welfare benefits, according to reporting by NBC News. During a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus last March, one member of Congress told Trump that welfare cuts, which the president had proposed in his budget, would harm her constituents, specifying that not all of them were black.

According to NBC News, Trump said, “Really? Then what are they?”

Trump supporters are also more likely than Clinton voters to overestimate the share of welfare and public housing benefits that go to black recipients.

HuffPost

The perceptions of who benefits from programs may affect the favorability of the programs themselves. White Americans are more likely to support “assistance to the poor” than “welfare,” one 2014 study found. And other polling has shown that whites are 30 points likelier to agree that “average Americans have gotten less than they deserve” than they are to say the same about black Americans.

Last year, House Republicans and Trump signaled they wanted reforms to food stamps, specifically increased “work requirements” that would deny benefits to the sliver of SNAP and Medicaid recipients who are able bodied but don’t have jobs. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested he didn’t have much interest in pursuing major changes to safety net programs.

Even without McConnell’s support for a full-fledged reform of food stamps, Congress will definitely have to consider the $70 billion program later this year because it needs to be reauthorized.

Last week, Trump and Ryan talked about “workforce development,” in what might be a new euphemism for Ryan’s longstanding goal of shrinking the federal safety net. Ryan reportedly told fellow Republicans at a GOP retreat in West Virginia last week that workforce development means “getting people the skills and opportunity to get into the workforce.”

[aubiefifty 16,887]

3 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

Just remember, Trump is merely a symptom.  So many people willing to follow the fake tough guy act, the habitual liar, the phony, self serving populist.  That is the problem.  Well, that is the revelation of many problems.

my dream is to get in a boxing ring ONE time with trump so i can punch him right in his foul lying mouth. why? people think it is because i hate trump but my reasoning is all the people he has hurt and stolen and or assaulted over the years. i would take an ass whooping just to get one good punch in. so i have to work on my forgiveness a bit.

[icanthearyou 4,463]

16 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

you look at things wrong. i can see right through you. those dirty colored folk getting away with murder with crooked lib DA's putting them back on the streets fudging the numbers. i bet you think blacks are lazy too? blacks been on welfare and hand me outs and are just killing this country. guess what. in most cases whites double blacks on any assistance. lets show some facts.

Americans Are Mistaken About Who Gets Welfare

Arthur Delaney, Ariel Edwards-Levy

7–8 minutes

---

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress may soon embark on a racially-fraught policy battle over “welfare.”

“We can lift our citizens from welfare, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity,” Trump said in his State of the Union address last week, the latest signal that Republicans want “welfare reform” this year.

Trump has often pandered to racists among his supporters. He said Mexico sends “rapists” to the United States and that there were some “fine people” among the neo-Nazis who staged a deadly protest last year in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the president said Mexican heritage made it impossible for a judge to be fair, House Speaker Paul Ryan called it the “textbook definition” of racist.

The word “welfare” is different. It’s a standard political term that Democrats, Republicans and journalists alike use ― though Republicans use it the most often. There’s nothing overtly racialized about welfare. You can even find it in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

And yet, the word is often loaded with racial meaning. As a new HuffPost/YouGov survey shows, much of the public has a distorted view of which groups receive the bulk of assistance from government programs. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say either that most welfare recipients are black, or that welfare recipiency is about the same among black and white people.

HuffPost

The numbers reflect a significant overestimation of the number of black Americans benefiting from the largest programs. Medicaid had more than 70 million beneficiaries in 2016, of whom 43 percent were white, 18 percent black, and 30 percent Hispanic. Of 43 million food stamp recipients that year, 36.2 percent were white, 25.6 percent black, 17.2 percent Hispanic and 15.5 percent unknown. (Food stamps are formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.)

In one sense, HuffPost’s survey asked an abstract question: The federal government doesn’t run a program that is actually called “welfare.” The word can describe any instance of the government helping people or businesses, though it’s most commonly used to describe programs that benefit the poor.

These days, to Republican lawmakers, welfare means Medicaid, food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Paul Ryan and hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives have said they want to make changes to those three programs this year under the banner of welfare reform.

Historically, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is probably the program that has most frequently been called welfare, as it was created in the famous “welfare reform” of 1996. As a result of that reform, the program today is much smaller than its predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and it only served 2.7 million people in 2016. Of those, 36.9 percent were Hispanic, 27.6 percent white, and 29.1 percent black ― meaning that if they had this particular program in mind, HuffPost’s survey respondents who said the number of white and black beneficiaries are “about the same” were basically right.

Survey respondents’ estimation of who receives welfare tracked closely to their estimation of who gets food stamps. Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents said the program’s recipients are mostly black or that there are as many black Americans as white Americans receiving benefits. Only 21 percent correctly said there are more white than black food stamp recipients.

“Across the programs people overestimate the share of recipients who are black,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy. “It’s not surprising because we all know people’s images of public benefits is driven by stereotype.”

Trump himself harbors mistaken views of who receives welfare benefits, according to reporting by NBC News. During a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus last March, one member of Congress told Trump that welfare cuts, which the president had proposed in his budget, would harm her constituents, specifying that not all of them were black.

According to NBC News, Trump said, “Really? Then what are they?”

Trump supporters are also more likely than Clinton voters to overestimate the share of welfare and public housing benefits that go to black recipients.

HuffPost

The perceptions of who benefits from programs may affect the favorability of the programs themselves. White Americans are more likely to support “assistance to the poor” than “welfare,” one 2014 study found. And other polling has shown that whites are 30 points likelier to agree that “average Americans have gotten less than they deserve” than they are to say the same about black Americans.

Last year, House Republicans and Trump signaled they wanted reforms to food stamps, specifically increased “work requirements” that would deny benefits to the sliver of SNAP and Medicaid recipients who are able bodied but don’t have jobs. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested he didn’t have much interest in pursuing major changes to safety net programs.

Even without McConnell’s support for a full-fledged reform of food stamps, Congress will definitely have to consider the $70 billion program later this year because it needs to be reauthorized.

Last week, Trump and Ryan talked about “workforce development,” in what might be a new euphemism for Ryan’s longstanding goal of shrinking the federal safety net. Ryan reportedly told fellow Republicans at a GOP retreat in West Virginia last week that workforce development means “getting people the skills and opportunity to get into the workforce.”

 

 

I have to say, I do not care for this analysis.  Not because it is flawed but,,, because the real economic disparity in our "welfare system" lies in the welfare for the wealthy versus the welfare for the poor.  Our government debt is not a reflection of our social conscience.  It is a reflection of deeply rooted corruption.  It results in an incredibly over taxed upper middle class. It reduces their ability to become employers, entrepreneurs, agents of growth and, mobile into the upper class.

 

Ten Examples of Welfare for Corporations and the Ultra-Rich

January 16, 2014

by Bill Quigley

 

 

There are thousands of tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and corporations provided by federal, state and local governments, but these 10 will give a taste.

 

1. State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.

2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.

3. Federal tax breaks for corporations: The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks that have reduced what is supposed to be a 35-percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

4. Federal tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers: Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only a 15-percent rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay a 35-percent rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually, and 68 percent of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top 1 percent of earners).

5. Subsidies to the fast food industry: Research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.

6. Mortgage deduction: The home mortgage deduction, which costs taxpayers $70 billion per year, is a huge subsidy to the real estate, banking and construction industries. The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that 77 percent of the benefit goes to homeowners with incomes over $100,000 per year.

7. The billions above do not even count the government bailout of Wall Street, while all parties have done their utmost to tell the public that they did not need it, that they paid it back or that it was a great investment. The Atlantic Monthly estimates that $7.6 trillion was made available by the Federal Reserve to banks, financial firms and investors. The Cato Institute estimates (using government figures) the final costs at $32 to $68 billion, not including the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which alone cost more than $180 billion.

8. Each major piece of legislation contains new welfare for the rich and corporations. The Boston Globe analyzed the emergency tax legislation passed by Congress in early 2013 and found it contained 43 business and energy tax breaks, together worth $67 billion.

9. Huge corporations that engage in criminal or other wrongful activities protect their leaders from being prosecuted by paying huge fees or fines to the government. You and I would be prosecuted. These corporations protect their bosses by paying off the government. For example, Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase, which made a preliminary $13-billion mortgage settlement with the US government, is allowed to write off a majority of the deal as tax deductible, saving the corporation $4 billion.

10. There are thousands of smaller special breaks for corporations and businesses out there. There is a special subsidy for corporate jets, which cost taxpayers $3 billion a year. The tax deduction for second homes costs $8 billion a year. Fifty billionaires received taxpayer-funded farm subsidies in the past 20 years.

If you want to look at the welfare for the rich and corporations, start with the federal Internal Revenue Code. That is the King James Bible of welfare for the rich and corporations. Special breaks in the tax code are the reason that there are thousands of lobbyists in the halls of Congress, hundreds of lobbyists around each state legislature and tens of thousands of tax lawyers all over the country.

Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans.

 

 

These are merely the tip of the iceberg.  And why,,, we continue to become a more unequal, less civil, more violent society.  We are starving society in order to feed the gluttony of the capital class.

The Stereotypes of People Who Get Welfare Benefits Are All Wrong

More Welfare for Wall Street: One in Three Bank Tellers Need Public Assistance

Bailed-Out Bank CEO: Public Criticism of Wall St. Bonuses is Just Like Lynchings

CEOs Make 273 Times the Average Worker

America’s Ridiculously Rich: the 2014 Edition

Tax-Dodging Wal-Mart Holds Another Food Drive for Its Impoverished Workers

The Stereotypes of People Who Get Welfare Benefits Are All Wrong

More Welfare for Wall Street: One in Three Bank Tellers Need Public Assistance

 

[I_M4_AU 7,951]

19 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

you look at things wrong. i can see right through you.

You can’t even see yourself, how can you know anyone else?
 

Quote

those dirty colored folk getting away with murder with crooked lib DA's putting them back on the streets fudging the numbers. i bet you think blacks are lazy too?

What a nasty thing to say.  All you see is race and that is why you are such a miserable hippie.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Rednilla
Quoted wrong member