26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally the truth is told, July 8, 2008
This review is from: Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit (Hardcover)
Professor Browning has done everyone a favor by taking his 20 years of teaching economics to Texas A&M students and translating his course work into an easily digestable book. Be forewarned if you have high blood pressure the information presented may cause you to blow a gasket. Professor Browning uses facts not emotional arguments to show, that the welfare system, which is nothing more then taking from the haves and giving to those who politicans believe are the have nots in the United States, can't be justified, and costs America more then it delivers. A GREAT read. I highly recommend this book. Once you're done pass it on so that another person can have their eyes opened to the reality of redistribution of wealth and how it's causing us to lose our freedom.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very valuable, well-written book, July 25, 2008
This review is from: Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit (Hardcover)
This book covers an array of important issues from taxes to social security to poverty programs. From part of a piece that I had at Fox News this week where I discuss just a small portion of his book:
A new book, "Stealing from Each Other, How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit" by Edgar Browning, an economics professor at Texas A&M University and a world-renowned expert on government finance, has added up the costs and consequences of the existing programs.
By 2005, the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives pointed out 85 separate programs that primarily aided persons with limited incomes. Total federal, state, and local expenditures amounted to $620 billion. That came to $16,750 per person in poverty, or over $50,000 for a welfare family of three, several times higher than the official poverty line for a family of three, which was $15,577 in 2005.
Browning estimates that only 10 percent of these expenditures went to administrative costs. He provides some perspective: "We are already spending more than enough to completely eliminate poverty, even if the poor have zero earnings or other sources of income on their own." The official government estimates of the number of poor people rarely count the government aid when calculating the poor's income. Browning also notes that there are so many programs and some are so complicated, "no one understands fully how the welfare system operates."
Yet even these numbers underestimate how much help the government spends on the poor. For example, Social Security does not provide benefits that are proportional to what people pay into the system. The system provides large transfers from high-income to low-income individuals. Browning estimates the welfare portion of Social Security accounts for $100 billion a year. According to him, adding this to Medicare, other uncompensated medical care, and other costs increases welfare payments to over $1 trillion in 2005.
By comparison, Browning has noted elsewhere that the first five years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost $473 billion, less than half what the war on poverty spent in one year.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, July 24, 2008
This review is from: Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit (Hardcover)
The dust jacket description of this book concludes by stating: "Intended for a general audience, Stealing from Each Other covers everything informed citizens need to know about inequality, poverty, welfare, Social Security, taxation, and the true costs of government redistributive policies." Although I don't know whether it covers "everything", it is certainly an eye-opening treatment of these issues that will change the way you think about how government policies affect our economy and our standard of living. This book makes clear that the news media conveys a lot of misleading information on these topics.
For example, did you know that the government now transfers more than a trillion dollars a year to low income families through dozens of welfare and social insurance policies? And that despite this expenditure the poverty rate is virtually unchanged over the last forty years? How could all this be spent to so little effect? Read Chapter 6 to find out.
But perhaps the most interesting chapter is the one on Social Security. I think I finally understand why so many people think it is the most pressing problem we confront.
This book is a must read during an election season when the "economy" is the big issue.
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