Is the USA a "welfare state" like the right claims?

Or are we a Social Security/Medicare state?

I maintain the latter. From my perspective about 85% of all social spending are for elderly entitlements.

It seems the right wants to combine SS with “welfare” in order to demonize taxes.

It depends on how you are defining welfare? Aren’t social security and medicare welfare programs by strict definition?

You seem thoughtful so I humbly submit this wiki page as a starting point:

To surmise you correct that the right is demonizing things, but what they’ve demonized is the idea of social safety net. Welfare state isn’t a bad thing. It isn’t mothers with 9 kids on the dole buying fine automobiles. Never was.

Welfare state simply means society has your back and helps you when you need it.

While I think this is true, and I agree with it, I wonder if “welfare state” as a term means something more than merely the existence of a social safety net.

For instance, I’d say that we are, in fact, a “welfare state” because of the laws that require that hospital emergency rooms provide emergency medical treatment. It is the formal legal requirement, the fundamental obligation, the entitlement, that makes it more than just an option. It is a basic legal right.

(And, since I’m in favor of that, I guess I’m a welfare statist.)

Yeah, that’s got me confused, too. How does a “welfare state” differ from a “Social Security/Medicare state”? And why is the latter ok, but the former is not?

You pay into social security and medicare before you draw on them. SSDI and medicaid are the ones you can draw on without paying into them.

I really hate splitting hairs with my betters, however… SSDI requires paying into whilst SSI does not. Both are for disabled, which you get depends on whether or worked long enough to qualify for SSDI.

It’s more than that. IMO the right sees SS as a big pool of “dead” money that could be put to better use in the stock market or other private investment. They want to demonize it only to the extent that the pile ends up being liberated for private use.

Let’s have a cite for your title, please.

Well not necessarily. They want the middle class, and poor taxed. I mean do explain trickle down, but no trickle up?

Sheesh! Not even hard!

The Washington Examiner says we are.

I’m not sure how that’s inconsistent with what the right says. The right’s argument, as I understand it, is that entitlement expenditures threaten to overwhelm the budget. From the article linked by Trinopus:

SS/Medicare is not a savings account. The money I pay into SS/Medicare goes out to current recipients (and to pay interest on the debt, etc.). I can earn far more from SS/Medicare than I ever paid in. And the payments I receive are indexed to the consumer price index, not inflation. In other words, there’s very little actual relationship between what I pay into SS/Medicare, and what I receive.

As I understand the right’s argument, that’s the problem. We’re paying more out than we’re receiving in. So I’m not trying to be disagreeable, but I don’t see how calling the US a “Social Security/Medicare state” undercuts the right’s argument.

Can someone explain to me what I’m missing?

That’s the press. A paper of which I know absolutely nothing. Let’s see a cite of some modern conservatives.

Just to add one thing to what’s already been said: I believe your 85% figure applies to federal spending. A serious critique of the relationship between individual finances and government policy also addresses state and local government spending.

You failed to buy into the silly oversimplification and/or the distinction without a difference put out there in the OP.

Newt: Unleashing Growth And Innovation Move Beyond Welfare State

Romney: “We’re becoming far more like a European social welfare state”

Thanks for quoting this. What an amazing display of right wing dishonesty! It puts “Obamacare” right up there with Medicare and Social Security as if current spending on it (Is there any besides planning and writing regulations?) is in any way comparable.

BTW here is the wiki on The Examiner. It is owned by the same people who own the Weekly Standard, which I hope friend Quartz has heard of, co-sponsored a debate, and has several NR conservatives writing for it.

Yes, there is “current” spending on Obamacare. For example, Obamacare funds the expansion of Medicare coverage for the uninsured in part with about $500 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage. The cuts in Medicare Advantage are scheduled to start in October – a month before the election – but the benefits to the uninsured don’t start until 2014. The Obama admin launched what they called a “development program,” which will provide $8.3 billion in funding for Medicare Advantage, extending the program out past the November elections. The GAO recently criticized the program and asked the White House to cancel it.

And the Obama admin has diverted $500 million to the IRS to implement Obamacare.

There’s almost certainly been more spending on Obamacare, but those are the two that popped immediately to mind.

Moreover, I suspect Obamacare was included because of the “future” aspect of the spending (i.e., “Over the next 25 years”). In 25 years, there will certainly be significant spending on Obamacare.

So I don’t see what’s so “dishonest” about the statement. It neither says nor implies that current spending on Obamacare approximates that of Social Security or Medicare. And because Obamacare will have significant costs in the future, it’s certainly fair to include it when calculating future costs.

But even if there hadn’t been any spending on Obamacare, how would that support the OP’s premise?

The quote specifically says “current spending”. If it had said spending over the next 25 years I wouldn’t have been outraged. $500 million is a drop in the Social Security / Medicare bucket.

Medicare Advantage is the Bush giveaway to private insurers, right? Moving that money around is a good thing. Better to go to the uninsured than to insurers.

As far as the question in the OP, obviously not. My daughter is now living in Germany. She gets health insurance for a relative song. He current German boyfriend and previous English boyfriend both went to college for free - and could hardly conceive that so many American students leave with massive debts. We’re no more a welfare state than we are socialist.

Those’ll do nicely. Thank you.