The Welfare Debate

Author

Bubba
14 Oct

Welfare keeps cropping up in the political discourse, as the number of Americans who rely on government benefits continues to grow. (Boston Herald)

The latest: 672,483 new EBT cards have been added to Massachusetts’ welfare system in just over a year, a 34.6% increase from July 2023 to the present, according to the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance.

  • In 2024, federal and state governments provided approximately more than $3 billion to the Massachusetts DTA for welfare and benefits programs.

  • Republican State Sen. Ryan Fattman is pushing for an audit of the DTA to investigate the growth in EBT cards and concerns over out-of-state spending on welfare.

  • In January, Massachusetts faced a revenue shortfall of more than $260 million.

Zoom out: The share of U.S. counties relying on government aid for at least 25% of their income has rose from 1% in 1970 to more than 53% in 2022. (Most of the growth in areas dependent on government aid has occurred in Republican counties.)

A new analysis from Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen:

[Donald] Trump rose to power with the backing of the working class, then reoriented the party to focus on them as much as big business. … This helps explain the massive surge in government spending under Trump, his continued opposition to trade agreements, his scorn for GOP ideas to gut Social Security and Medicare, and his us-vs.-them rhetoric.

American Enterprise Institute fellow Phil Gramm and Rep. Jodey Arrington in the Wall Street Journal last month:

Ask any budget expert in Washington to explain the ballooning deficit and debt, and Social Security and Medicare will be high on the list of causes. That’s wrong. The real driver, the elephant in the room, is means-tested social-welfare spending—Medicaid, food stamps, refundable tax credits, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, federal housing subsidies and almost 100 other programs whose eligibility is limited to those below an income threshold.

Bubba’s Two Cents

It seems like almost every month there’s a new state facing a budgetary crisis. Every day the debt reaches a new record high. At the same time, both presidential contenders are pitching plans that offer generous benefits to voters while piling onto the national debt. But no one on either ticket seems to have a feasible answer on how to pay for it all.