Since when is unemployment insurance considered welfare?
Which also includes things for public health like the CDC - you’re implying that every dime of that goes to the poor?
Oh, HORRORS! Feeding school children! Where will it end? Free public education?
Given how trimmed down that post was I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. The Earned Income Tax Credit? That’s only eligible to people who are employed, and is meant to encourage people to work rather than sit on their ass. You’re saying this is a problem?
I’m totally OK with the US reducing involvement in global affairs and someone else riding to the “rescue”.
You try to minimize the damage they do.
If someone is so dysfunctional for whatever reason there is no chance they’ll be a productive member of society then you find a way to enable them to exist while causing minimal social damage. That may, in fact, entail some sort of minimal (but decent) housing, food allowance, and other actual necessities. Prisoners are entitled to basic food, housing, clothing, showers, and medical care, why shouldn’t fucked up homeless and destitute people have at least that much?
The trick would be maximizing the benefit to society while minimizing the costs. The current bureaucratic maze with endless means-testing certainly drives up the cost of all this. If we are, as a society, going to provide the poor with various services I’d prefer most of the money go to actually providing those services, not an army of office workers.
One of the biggest problems these days is affordable housing. A LOT of low-cost housing has disappeared over the past few decades. But that’s a whole other discussion.
Unless you don’t think there’s a single person in the US who is poor due to reasons beyond his or her control, then the only disagreement between us is how many Americans actually are poor due to reasons beyond their control. I assume you probably think it’s a small or very small portion of the US in poverty, while I think it’s a significant portion of those Americans in poverty.
Gawsh, thanks for telling this clueless white liberal what poverty is like. I would have never know- well, except for growing up in a housing project on food stamps. White liberals come from all kinds of backgrounds.
You are right that the poor are savvy and have well-honed survival skills, and of course there are different types of poverty.
But poverty itself is structural. (Almost) nobody denies that the distribution of wealth between nations is structural. It’s not like the people of Luxembourg just try harder than the people of Zambia. No matter how hard or what a good person your average Zambian farmer is, he’s not going to have much of a shot at living the life of your average lout from Luxembourg.
There are structural reasons for poverty within nations as well. Measuring class mobility can actually be done pretty accurately. The U.S. doesn’t measure up great. And low class mobility is a bad thing all around, because it leads to poor allocation of human resources. We want the bright poor to be able to rise up, and the dim rich to work jobs appropriate for the abilities.
While people in a given society will always rise up and down, we can (and do) do a lot to keep things mobile. We can ensure the children of the poor have adequate nutrition and health care that their cognitive capacity is not stunted. We have simple, proven ways of ensuring medical care doesn’t bankrupt people. We can make sure that educational opportunities are open to the best and brightest wherever they may be, and that everyone has access to enough education to open up opportunities.
My main goal is to make sure childhood poverty doesn’t automatically lead to adult poverty, and that temporary poverty doesn’t become permanent poverty. This is achievable, and it is worth it- not just morally, but economically.
It’s a big problem. The EITC and the child tax credit are some of the largest areas where fraud is found. People even try to claim kids that don’t live in this country.
And now the IRS Commissioner has testified before Congress that illegal aliens will be able to apply for, and receive refunds under the EITC, thanks to the President’s executive action. Brilliant.
Teenagers are surprisingly ignorant.
I mean, I too, personally would think everyone knows but apparently some do not. But, we do still have people in the world that think “if I sit directly on a cold stone I will go sterile” so…hey.
Too bad this report does not go into the “why” these teens thought they could not get pregnant despite not using any contraceptives. Since this report only covers teens that actually got pregnant, it doesn’t cover any teens who managed to screw around ignorant of the possibilities, but managed to avoid pregnancy anyway through sheer luck.
Uh-huh.
So, because some people cheat we should punish all the people on the program? What about the people who aren’t cheating?
See, this is the problem minorities face. If a white man commits a crime it doesn’t reflect on other white men, but if a black man commits a crime it “proves” black people are criminals.
If a middle-class or wealthy person cheats on his taxes it doesn’t reflect on the others of his class and there isn’t a hue and cry to end programs for those folks as a whole, but if a poor person cheats on taxes then OMG ALL POOR PEOPLE ARE TAX CHEATS END ALL ASSISTANCE IMMEDIATELY!
Go after the criminals. Leave the honest people alone. Better yet, go after the big fish tax cheats with the same rabid fervor you heap on the poor small fry.
It’s more than just some. According to the IRS, 21-26% of all EITC claims are fraudulent.
http://www.eitc.irs.gov/Tax-Preparer-Toolkit/faqs/fraud
And they’re trying to increase the pool of people eligible, which can only increase the number of fraudulent claims. This is not a good idea.
Your cite also seems to indicate the IRS already has a mechanism in place to confirm all EITC claims and withholds payment in cases where there is any hint of hanky-panky. So… of that approximately 1/4 of bad claims how many result in payments? Or do they catch most of these cases before the money goes out?
Because if it’s the latter case then the error-checking mechanism is actually working.
ALL welfare benefits are subject to audit. I was audited both when I was on unemployment in 2007 and once while on food stamps. I have no idea if it was because someone was suspicious of me or if it was a random check. It was annoying, but no big deal because 1) I’m not a cheat and 2) I’ve got my paperwork and evidence in order. I fully approve of auditing, of investigating fraud, and the like.
But turn it around - 3/4 of EITCs filed are for people who legitimately qualify for the benefit. The vast majority of people involved with this program are honest people, people who get up and go to work (you can’t get this unless you’re gainfully employed), and who are just trying to get by in this world. What about them? Are they worthy of compassion in your eyes or just scum?
According to the Inspector General, $62 billion went out in 2012.
http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201340084fr.pdf
Then the system needs to be improved - but not demolished.
I think it’s worth reminding people at this point that plenty of the enlisted military are also the poor. Plenty of enlisted families qualify and use food stamps to survive. So conservatives remember when you complain about food stamps, you 're not supporting our troops.
The President issued an executive order to do just that back in '09. In 2013, TIGTA issued its required report, saying that it wasn’t happening. Of course, a year later, the President issued another executive order expanding the pool of applicants by some 5 million. Good job!
The problem isn’t the size of the pool of applicants, it’s the fraud occurring.
I’m taking a guess and assuming the most common fraud is probably claiming kids you don’t have or aren’t yours. (Not an issue in my house, as we do not have children to claim). That’s not restricted to just EITC, it’s a type of fraud that can occur at any socio-economic level, the claiming of dependents that aren’t really dependents.
In any case - I fully support policing the system. I mean, there was that huge dust-up this year with people using TurboTax to file bogus returns and steal other peoples’ tax returns. the problem isn’t TurboTax, it’s people using TurboTax to commit a crime.
I still think we can solve the fraud issue without eliminating a program that actually does do some good.
Just as an observer following this, the below argument pretty much trumps all conservative talking points. Wealth is structural and it inhibits class mobility. Until we can fix the simple reality that the playing field is NOT level for all, it seems ridiculous to me to campaign for austerity, which always disproportionately affects the have nots.
Increasing the applicant pool can only ADD to the problem. If the average fraud rate is 25%, then adding 5 million more claimants will more likely than not add 1.25 million cases of fraud.
Where else in society do we accept a 25% fraud rate? What if 25% of credit card transactions, driver’s licenses, and voter registrations were fraudulent? Or if Walmart defrauded 25% of its customers?
Yes, that appears to be the case.
Right, except it’s not happening. The executive order prohibiting improper payments was issued in 2009. According to the 2013 report, no change has occurred. I doubt the situation has changed in the last 18 months.
You’re assuming the fraud problem can’t be reduced (you’ll never get it to zero). Why are you making that assumption? If we could drive down the fraud rate to, say, 3% (a number pulled out of my ass) then adding 5 million more claimants will NOT add 1.25 million cases of fraud.
Why do you assume problems are insurmountable?
Or if 25% of companies using computerized transactions had their security breached and information stolen? Oh, wait - that just happened to Anthem Blue Cross’s 80 millions customers. Hmmm… isn’t 80 million people just about 1/4 of the US population…? Add that to all the other security breaches that result in identify theft and financial fraud. We don’t seem to be doing much about that, do we?
So call/write/e-mail your Congress Critter and say THIS IS IMPORTANT, DAMMIT! because if you don’t let them know what matters to you nothing will ever change. Have you taken even that minor step?
Because they simply aren’t being surmounted.
The IRS dates to 1862.
The EITC was enacted in 1975.
The Obama executive order came in 2009.
As of the 2013 report, fraud was still at 21-26%.
Why should I write Congress? Do you know who is responsible to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed”?
Congress passes the laws.
Congress authorizes the funding to enforce the laws.
If all else fails, Congress can remove a national CEO, although the one time it looked like that might happen Nixon resigned on his own.
Also - has the fraud ALWAYS been at that level, or has the level gone up or down over the years?
Seriously, the IRS of 1862 would have been a completely different animal than the IRS of 2015 - for one thing, the US didn’t even have a Federal income tax until WWI.
Right. The problem isn’t with law, it’s a matter of enforcement. Which branch of government is supposed to enforce the laws, under the Constitution?
Unless it’s funding for the Department of Homeland Security, in which case Senate Democrats will filibuster it. :rolleyes:
I don’t know. Do you? The fact remains that under this Administration, in violation of the President’s own executive order, fraud is around 25% when it comes to the EITC.
Are you OK with that?