Dear Editor:
Many will get their knickers in a twist over President Trump's proposed budget, mostly because of the proposed reductions of "free stuff" that the federal government has been funding by piling debt on future generations. If you think the "free stuff" is worthwhile, please ask state legislators to include such services, and the funding for those services, in our state budget.
For March 2017 the unemployment rate in Jefferson City was 3.4 percent, it was 3.9 percent for Missouri and 4.5 percent nationwide. Anything below 4-5 percent is considered full employment by many economists. In 1962 the unemployment averaged 5.5 percent. (I used 1962 because it is the earliest year for historical data in Obama's 2017 budget proposal, which was the basis for the following statistics.)
The following information is based on inflation adjusted dollars. If we discount Social Security and Medicare spending, so that they don't "muddy the water," 2016 federal spending was 3.36 times what it was in 1962. Why such an increase when spending on agriculture actually decreased during the 1962-2016 period and 2016 spending on national defense was only 1.48 times what it was in 1962?
Federal budget line item 600 Income Security - spending in 2016 was 7.36 times higher than it was in 1962. 450 Community and Regional Development - spending was 7.62 times higher. 500 Education, Training, Employment and Social Services - expenditures were 11.77 times higher. 550 Health - I assume this is mostly Medicaid, expenditures were 56.29 times higher.
In 1962 the above noted areas of federal spending consumed 11.3 percent of the budget. In 2016 they consumed 30.3 percent of a budget that was 3.4 times larger. Is poverty really so much worse today than it was 54 years ago that it justifies spending 12.7 times what was spent in 1962?
It would seem that by any objective measure the "War on Poverty" has failed miserably, yet, as always, governments solution has been to throw more money at the problem. We have gotten more of the behavior government has subsidized/rewarded, which should surprise no one.
I suggest that our nation would be much better off if virtually all of the above programs, and the responsibility for funding the programs, were transferred from the federal government to state government.