U.S. Social Spending

[MrJayremmie]

Nanny State?

Part of the article...

U.S. Ranks Dead Last In Overall Social Spending

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x911021

This report from the OECD and The Business Insider, could not have come at a more crucial time in our national debate regarding the federal budget and the course the Republicans have chosen to take.

The conservative pundits are trying to frame this debate along the lines that the deficit and debt of the United States was created by the liberal, nanny state programs. This is an outright lie they have drummed into the heads of the American people. Unfortunately, some of the pundits are trusted sources of information for millions of people.

The United States currently ranks thirty-fourth(34th) out of the thirty-four(34) members of the OECD in regards to spending on social programs, DEAD LAST.

The amount the United States spends is currently only 7.2% of our gross domestic product on programs that make up our social contract with the American people.

Remember a year ago when the conservative deficit hawks were warning that if the United States doesn’t start looking at our social programs we would end up like Greece?

They told us the reason Greece was in financial trouble was due to their social programs and if we, the United States didn’t want to become like Greece, we needed to cut back on our social expenditures. Well Greece spends 21.3% on social programs, 14.1% more than the United States does. That is a big difference!

 

[Denny Crane]

Social Security and Medicare spending is about $1.5T of a $14T GDP. That alone is more than 10% of GDP.

I guess DemocraticUnderground.com doesn't consider those two things (among others) to be social contracts.

All I can say to that is:

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Nanny State?

Part of the article...

U.S. Ranks Dead Last In Overall Social Spending

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x911021

No offense, but that's pretty much too lame and untrue to respond to.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

I'll just assume the money went to illegals.

X

 

[bluefrog]

Nanny State?

Part of the article...

U.S. Ranks Dead Last In Overall Social Spending

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x911021

This article is a little misleading. The U.S. is pretty close to the bottom but technically not dead last. Australia, Slovak Republic and Israel are worse. As are Iceland
Estonia
Chile
Turkey
Korea
Mexico
Brazil
Russian Federation
South Africa
China
and
India

It's an interesting report if you guys want to look at the report and actually learn something. We're at 16.20% of GDP for public social spending and 25.6 for net social spending (which includes private donations, I think). France is #1 with 28.40% Public social spending

 

[Denny Crane]

Another report.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=FRF

The unemployment rate in France was last reported at 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. From 1983 until 2010, France's Unemployment Rate averaged 9.54 percent reaching an historical high of 11.80 percent in March of 1994 and a record low of 7.30 percent in February of 1983.

(More unemployed need more social services, no?)

 

[BrianFromWA]

The original writer has corrected his numbers:

I used some information that has since been corrected on the original site, Business Insider. It turns out that the United States spends 16.2% of our GDP on social programs, NOT 7.2%.

Which brings the US to 25th of 34.

I went to EQ5.xls on this page to look at the underlying data. It seems, for all the talk of health care (insurance?) reform, we're spending almost exactly the same as everyone else on "public health", whatever that means, while spending the same amount of GDP on "private health". Which means we're at least doubling the health spending by GDP of every other country. We're spending much less on "pensions" and "working age support" than the countries above us, which makes sense when you think about how many other countries have more government workers as a % of workforce.

 

[MrJayremmie]

I guess DemocraticUnderground.com doesn't consider those two things (among others) to be social contracts.

I'm sorry, i posted the wrong link.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/u-s-ranks-dead-last-in-overall-social-spending

 

[jlprk]

I'm sorry, i posted the wrong link.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/u-s-ranks-dead-last-in-overall-social-spending

The point of the article is that our deficit is not caused by high social spending, because countries with high social spending (per capita) have much less deficit (per capita) than us. When you compare nations, there is no correlation between social spending and deficit.

 

[Denny Crane]

The point of the article is that our deficit is not caused by high social spending, because countries with high social spending (per capita) have much less deficit (per capita) than us. When you compare nations, there is no correlation between social spending and deficit.

The point is wrong.

Using an exaggerated figure of $1T for military spending, Obama proposed to spend nearly $4T overall, $3T of that being social spending, and at a $1.6T deficit. So if we eliminate the armed forces entirely, along wit DHS and DoE, we'd still have a $600B deficit.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

I'll just assume the money went to illegals.

X

Or the IAW

 

[jlprk]

The point is wrong.

Using an exaggerated figure of $1T for military spending, Obama proposed to spend nearly $4T overall, $3T of that being social spending, and at a $1.6T deficit. So if we eliminate the armed forces entirely, along wit DHS and DoE, we'd still have a $600B deficit.

A canned response. Did anyone read the actual article?

Here's an article I just saw, perfect for you idiots. It has big colorful simple graphs. See Spot. See Jane with Spot. No, Jane, no!

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/taxes-richest-americans-charts-graph

 

[Denny Crane]

A canned response. Did anyone read the actual article?

The original one or the corrected one?

I think I'll wait until it's fully corrected, or maybe the movie comes out.