WELFARE SPENDING
UNSUSTAINABLE

Confronting the Unsustainable Growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the Next StepsPublished on June 24, 2010 by Kiki Bradley and Robert Rector

Abstract: The growth of welfare spending is unsustainable and will drive the United States into bankruptcy if allowed to continue. President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget request would increase total welfare spending to $953 billion—a 42 percent increase over welfare spending in FY 2008, the last full year of the Bush Administration. To bring welfare spending under control, Congress should reduce welfare spending to pre-recession levels after the recession ends and then limit future growth to the rate of inflation. Congress should also restore work requirements in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and apply them to other federal welfare programs.

Read full report from Heritage Foundation:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/confronting%20the%20unsustainable%20growth%20of%20welfare%20entitlements%20principles%20of%20reform%20and%20the%20next%20steps


Albany County is facing an estimated 35 Million
dollar budget shortfall. County officials warn
that a 50 percent property tax hike might be
necessary to address this problem.

A better alternative would be for the County
of Albany to trim welfare spending. Albany
has a reputation as being a welfare place to
be.

In the City of Albany only about 1/3rd of
housing is owner-occupied, largely by an
aging population on fixed incomes. These
homeowners pay the property taxes that
support city government services and city
schools.

The Section 8 housing program is destroying
one city neighborhood after another.

Most of the city school population comes
from homes that pay no property taxes
to support those schools. Schools have
become expensive daycare centers . After
school programs are being expanded and
schools have become feeding stations.

Students spend more time in school, at
a higher cost to property taxpayers, and
learn less. The high school drop out rate
exceeds 50 percent. Disruptive students
diminish the learning environment for
those students who value education and
desire to learn.

The dysfunctional Albany school system
is a major factor spurring flight of nuclear
families, with children, to the suburbs.

Albany is not only losing population, it
is losing the people who pay property taxes
to sustain city services and city schools.

This can not continue!

Joe Sullivan