Furthermore, an article written by Robert Rector, Katherine Bradley, and Rachel Sheffield for the Heritage Foundation, states that all means-tested from federal and state sources combined were $956 billion. This $956 billion in annual welfare spending is distributed among as many as 100 million people which average about $9,500 per beneficiary. I am in agreement with the article in Discover the Networks intitled; “The Welfare States’s cost to American Taxpayers” that says, “If converted entirely to cash, these benefits equal more than five times the amount of money needed to lift every poor person in the United States out of poverty” (2012). The Federal Income Tax returns filed in the United States is approximately 143 million. Needless to say, because 58 million have no tax burden after taking deductions and credits, roughly 85 million people have to shoulder the entire governmental income tax burden and who finance the $746 billion populace 's share of the nation 's total welfare spending. The average that each of them spends is $8,776, to keep federal welfare programs buoyant. As of January 2009, the additional federal welfare …show more content…
Discover the Networks summized this by saying, “this requirement caused the number of healthy, childless food-stamp beneficiaries to double, from 1.9 million to 3.9 million. All told, the total number of food stamp recipients nationwide reached 46.7 million by 2012; up from about 32 million in 2008” (2012). This article goes on to say that the Obama Administration has vigorously enlisted new welfare beneficiaries. For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has engaged in a