Good News: Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues

From: The Blog Prof

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." - Federalist #45

What does the federal government do? Actually, most of what the government does is cut checks to other people: Pic of the day: Federal government spends most of its money (65%) cutting checks to beneficiaries

In the world of reality, we call this redistribution. It's a money transfer punishing those that actually produce and rewarding those that do not. How bad is it? This bad: Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues

U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.

Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.

Also, an estimated 59% of the 308.7 million Americans in this country get at least one federal benefit, according to the Census Bureau, based on 2009 data. An estimated 46.5 million get Social Security; 42.6 million get Medicare; 42.4 million get Medicaid; 36.1 million get food stamps; 12.4 million get housing subsidies; and 3.2 million get Veterans' benefits.

And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments--for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes--have fallen by $312 billion.

That is a tough feeding trough to take away from voters.

It's also an unsustainable one. Already this year for the first time entitlement spending has exceeded ALL federal tax revenues. All of them! That means that everything the federal government does outside of social security, Medicare and Medicaid is done completely on borrowed money or that printed out of thin air.

UPDATE: More from memeorandum. Additional commentary from Hot Air, Red State, Doug Ross and The Lonely Conservative