Some of us tried to warn that this would happen. When you create incentives for people to come to the United States illegally, of course that is exactly what they are going to do. In recent months, many political observers have breathlessly been watching to see if “amnesty” for illegal immigrants will get through Congress. But as you will see below, the truth is that Barack Obama has already created a de facto policy of amnesty for most illegal immigrants, and word about it has spread quickly throughout Mexico, central America and South America. If you are an illegal immigrant living in America and you haven’t been convicted of a crime, you are probably going to get to stay. And if you would like to illegally immigrate to the United States, if you get blocked from entering a few times it is not that big of a deal. You just keep trying until you finally get in. And once you are successful, there are a whole host of “goodies” that you can sign up for – especially if you go to one of the “sanctuary cities” that Obama steadfastly refuses to crack down on. In fact, the federal government actually has a website that instructs immigrants how to sign up for welfare programs once they arrive in the United States, and the Obama administration has actually distributed flyers that inform illegal immigrants that their immigration status will not be checked when they apply for food stamps. So we shouldn’t be surprised at the massive influx of illegal immigrants that we are experiencing right now. This is a problem of our own creation. (Read More...)
Welfare Programs
18 Stats That Prove That Government Dependence Has Reached Epidemic Levels
Did you know that the number of Americans getting benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million? In other words, the number of people that are taking money out of the system is far greater than the number of people that are putting money into the system. And did you know that nearly 70 percent of all of the money that the federal government spends goes toward entitlement and welfare programs? When it comes to the transfer of wealth, nobody does it on a grander scale than the U.S. government. Most of what the government does involves taking money from some people and giving it to other people. In fact, at this point that is the primary function of the federal government. (Read More...)
Government Website For Immigrants: Come To America And Take Advantage Of Our Free Stuff
A website run by the federal government (“WelcomeToUSA.gov“) encourages new immigrants to the United States to apply for welfare benefits. This website is run by the Department of Homeland Security and it says that it “is the U.S. Government’s official web portal for new immigrants.” So your tax dollars were used to build and maintain a website that teaches immigrants how to come into this country and sponge a living off of federal welfare programs paid for by your tax dollars. What in the world is happening to us? Yes, we will always need some legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants and immigration has been very good to this country. But at a time when there are millions upon millions of American citizens out of work and at a time when we are absolutely drowning in debt, do we really need to encourage millions more immigrants to come over and take advantage of our overloaded social welfare programs? WelcomeToUSA.gov actually encourages new immigrants to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Of course not all immigrants are eligible for all of those programs, but if an immigrant can get over to the U.S. and just get signed up for a couple of programs they can enjoy a higher standard of living doing nothing here than they can working at a low paying job back home. We have created a perverse system of incentives that makes it very attractive to people all over the world to do whatever they can to hitch a ride on “the gravy train” and take advantage of all of the benefits that they possibly can. And once immigrants get on welfare, many of them never leave. For example, one study discovered that 43 percent of all immigrants who have been in the United States for at least 20 years were still on welfare. We can’t even take care of our own citizens, and yet more immigrants hop on to the safety net every single day. At some point the safety net is going to break and then we won’t even be able to take care of the struggling Americans that really need it. (Read More...)
More Than 100 Million Americans Are On Welfare
There are more Americans dependent on the federal government than ever before in U.S. history. According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation conducted by the U.S. Census, well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. Many are enrolled in more than one. That is about a third of the entire population of the country. Sadly, that figure does not even include Social Security or Medicare. Today the federal government runs almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs”, and almost all of those programs have experienced substantial growth in recent years. Yes, we will always need a “safety net” for those that cannot take care of themselves, but it is absolutely ridiculous that the federal government is financially supporting one-third of all Americans. How much farther do things really need to go before we finally admit that we have become a socialist nation? At the rate we are going, it will not be too long before half the nation is on welfare. Unfortunately, we will likely never get to that point because the gigantic debt that we are currently running up will probably destroy our financial system before that ever happens. (Read More...)