Friday, January 13, 2023


Big Welfare Handouts Mean Folks Who Stay Home Are Living High on the Hog off Your Tax Dollars

Americans are justifiably frustrated that they are working hard to earn a living while being forced to support so many others who aren’t working.Some families can receive the annualized equivalent of a six-figure income with no one working—and you’re paying for it.

In 29 states, unemployment benefits and Obamacare subsidies are worth more than the wages and benefits earned by the median firefighter or truckdriver.

The expansion of welfare benefits—both in terms of eligibility and size of benefits—has provided a substantial disincentive to working.

In many states, gratuitous welfare benefits have made that childhood fantasy an adult reality. Professor Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago and I have found that some families can receive the annualized equivalent of a six-figure income with no one working—and you’re paying for it.

During the pandemic, idled workers received unemployment "bonuses" so high that many were pocketing more than twice what they had been making on the job. Even without these extra weekly payments, unemployment benefits can reach unexpected high levels in many states. In New Jersey, for instance, a family of four with no one working can receive unemployment benefits equivalent to a job paying over $96,000. That’s more than the median household earns in wages and benefits combined.

High unemployment benefits are not unique to the Garden State. In 13 states, a family can receive annualized unemployment benefits worth more than the median household income. The value of unemployment benefits comes not just from their sheer size, but their tax advantages as well. Unlike earned income, unemployment benefits are exempt from payroll taxes, and six states also exempt them from the respective state income tax.

And while the pandemic-related unemployment benefits have ended, the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") subsidies have just kept expanding. A program that was sold to the American people as a hand up for the poor has quickly been transformed into a handout for upper income earners.

In some parts of the country, a family of four earning over half a million dollars still qualifies for Obamacare subsidies. Those with a quarter million-dollar income qualify in nearly the entire country.

The annualized value of these healthcare subsidies and unemployment benefits for a family of four can exceed a six-figure income. In Washington state, the amount is more than $122,000, substantially more than many blue-collar incomes.

In fact, it is 32 percent more than the wages and benefits of the median household; 51 percent more than the median secondary school teacher’s wages and benefits; 95 percent more the median machinist’s salary and benefits, and 220 percent more than the median retail associate’s salary and benefits.

But Washington state is not alone. In 29 states, unemployment benefits and Obamacare subsidies are worth more than the wages and benefits earned by the median firefighter or truckdriver. In 14 states, these two programs pay annualized benefits exceeding the wages and benefits of the median electrician.

While our study examined only two welfare programs that are not means-tested, there is an entire suite of means-tested programs for which many people are eligible, and which together provide a surprisingly high standard of living.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., you can receive over $25,000 in annual rental assistance alone—and that is just one program. Add to that food stamps, which have just been expanded, and subsidies for everything from education to transportation, and you have not just a robust social safety net but a perverse incentive not to work because even a small amount of income disqualifies you from receiving these means-tested benefits.

Many economists have been scratching their heads, wondering why so many workers are sitting on the sidelines today, despite four-decade-high inflation and the resulting record-high number of unfilled job openings. The expansion of welfare benefits—both in terms of eligibility and size of benefits—has provided a substantial disincentive to working. Businesses must not only compete against one another for workers, but against the dole as well.

While Americans are preparing for the most expensive Christmas ever, they are justifiably frustrated that they are working hard to earn a living while being forced to support so many others who aren’t working. That’s what happens when liberals play Santa Claus with your tax dollars.

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South Dakota Has Never Placed a Male in a Women’s Prison, Gov. Noem Says in Response to Criticism of Trans Policy

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, is considering changes to her Department of Corrections policy following criticism from conservatives, particularly National Review writer Nate Hochman.

Earlier this month, Hochman claimed that “the Noem-appointed prisons director recently signed off on allowing inmates to transfer to prisons that match their ‘gender identity’ rather than biological sex—and attain sex changes on the taxpayer dime.”

Ian Fury, Noem’s spokesman, told The Daily Signal that Hochman mischaracterized South Dakota’s prison policy (available here), which a former secretary of corrections adopted in June 2021 following a legal settlement agreement.

“Our policy is substantially similar to other states. Our Department of Corrections is reviewing the policy to see if there is any room for improvement,” Fury said. Referring to the prison housing policy, the governor’s spokesman noted that placements “are decided on a case-by-case basis, but such requests have been denied every time they have been made.”

Elsewhere, female prison inmates have suffered at the hands of male inmates who claim to identify as transgender. Ramel Blount, 33, a male who said he identifies as female, pleaded guilty to attempted rape of a female inmate in the women’s section of New York’s Rikers Island jail in February 2021.

The South Dakota prison policy states that “inmate housing is not based exclusively on external genital anatomy of those housed in the unit or facility,” and that “requests by a transgender, intersex or gender dysphoric inmate to transfer to a facility inconsistent with the inmate’s external genital anatomy (sex), may be considered.”

The prison system’s Gender Dysphoria Committee investigates any such request, and makes a recommendation. According to the document, all such requests shall be considered on a “case-by-case basis.” Fury told The Daily Signal that the secretary of corrections (currently Kellie Wasko) has ultimate discretion on placement of inmates.

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DeSantis Wants to ‘Further Advance Protections for Innocent Life’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who signed a 15-week abortion ban into law last year, wants more protections for Florida’s unborn babies.

“The upcoming 2023 Florida legislative session starts in March, and we look forward to working with the Florida Legislature to further advance protections for innocent life,” press secretary Bryan Griffin shared with The Daily Signal on Tuesday afternoon.

Griffin pointed to a December press conference where the governor walked right up to the line of explicitly promising to support a bill banning abortions after a baby has a heartbeat.

“I’m willing to sign great life legislation,” DeSantis said, arms outstretched, asked if he would support a heartbeat bill. “That’s what I’ve always said I would do.”

Florida Right to Life President Lynda Bell hasn’t seen specific language on such a bill, though she’s called and contacted “quite a few” Florida legislators to discuss it.

“Last session we had a 15-week bill and we felt like that was just the beginning,” she shared hopefully on Tuesday morning. “Of course, we hadn’t had the Dobbs decision yet, and so we supported the 15-week bill and it was very successful.”

HB 5, which DeSantis signed in April, bans late-term abortions after the unborn baby has reached 15 weeks of age. It allows exceptions when the mother’s life is at risk or in danger of “irreversible physical impairment,” or if the baby has a fetal abnormality, but does not offer exceptions for rape.

“House Bill 5 protects babies in the womb who have beating hearts, who can move, who can taste, who can see, and who can feel pain,” DeSantis said at the time. “Life is a sacred gift worthy of our protection, and I am proud to sign this great piece of legislation which represents the most significant protections for life in the state’s modern history.”

Florida has seen a huge drop in abortions in the past year — in 2022, abortions fell by 14.5% statewide, according to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration.

Bell credits the infant lives saved to the “strong pro-life majority” in the Legislature and “a governor who asked us to send him pro-life legislation to sign and enact into law.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the DeSantis team after a spokesman for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, accused DeSantis of “hiding behind a 15-week ban” and claimed that Florida Right to Life was embarrassed by the governor (Bell denied this to The Daily Signal, praising both Noem and DeSantis for protecting life).

“Does he believe that 14-week-old babies don’t have a right to live?” asked spokesman Ian Fury in an irate email to National Review reporter Nate Hochman about Hochman’s “How Gender Ideology Conquered South Dakota.” Fury declined to comment further on the matter to The Daily Signal.

“To say that we are embarrassed by DeSantis? That statement alone is an embarrassment. We are thrilled with our governor,” Bell added.

DeSantis spokesman Griffin said Tuesday that the governor’s office “has no response” to Fury’s allegations, desiring that conservative governors across America “work together for reform and the enactment of conservative policies through our federalist system.”

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New documentary exposes truth of George Floyd's undoing

Jack Cashill praises film, asks why the arresting cops are sitting in prison

As all the world knows, the 46-year-old Floyd died in police custody on May 25, 2020. A 17-year-old bystander captured a limited perspective on the last few minutes of Floyd's life, time enough to cause a $2 billion upheaval that took a dozen lives, fueled a hundreds scams and forced a thousand dishonest "conversations" about race.

"Half truths are dangerous enough to topple a nation," says Henein, and right she is. By piecing together the available video imagery, especially the police body cams, Henein gets much closer to the truth than did the major media or the Minnesota courts, neither of which bothered to try.

At 7:45 that evening, Floyd buys cigarettes with a bogus $20 bill at Cup Foods, a convenience store co-owned by Palestinian-American Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, "Adam" for short.

Floyd leaves the store, literally skips across the street, and sits in the driver's seat of a Mercedes SUV. Sitting beside him is friend Morries Hall. Sitting in back is Shawanda Hill, an ex-girlfriend and, like Floyd and Hall, a convicted felon. Hall earlier that day was caught trying to pass a counterfeit twenty of his own.

Strangely, the car doesn't pull away. Hall would tell Henein that Floyd could not find the key fob. He had earlier told police that Floyd took a couple of Percocets and fell asleep. Truth is the first casualty of homicide investigations.

After determining the $20 was counterfeit, young black clerk Chris Martin is instructed to approach the car and ask Floyd and Hall to come back in and speak to Adam. They refuse.

A few minutes later Martin returns to the car with a co-worker, and Hall rips up a $20 bill in front of them and leaves it in the gutter. He and Floyd again refuse to return to the store.

At 8:01 p.m. a Cup Foods employee calls 911. The police release the transcript of the call but not the audio, nor the identity of the caller. Henein recreates the call in the documentary.

At 8:08 p.m. officers Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng arrive at the scene. The pair approach the vehicle from the driver's side. Floyd appears to swallow something as they approach.

Floyd is uncooperative from the start. His hands are all over the place. When Lane pulls his weapon, demanding that Floyd show his hands, Floyd grows hysterical and starts crying, "Please don't shoot."

Henein then cuts to bodycam footage from the previous May in which Floyd reacts in much the same way when stopped by the police. Here, too, he begs the police not to shoot him and swallows drugs in their presence.

"Keep your hands where I can f***ing see them," the exasperated officer yells at Floyd. The second officer threatens to tase him if he continues to resist. Henein wonders whether hysteria is Floyd's "shtick."

Back at Cup Foods, Shawanda yells at Floyd, "Stop resisting." The officers say the same thing more than once. At 8:14, after finally getting him in handcuffs, the officers walk a reluctant Floyd across the street to their vehicle and attempt to put him in the back seat.

"I'm scared as f***," says Floyd, adding cryptically. "When I stop breathing. It's gonna go off on me." Lane offers to stay with him, to roll down the windows, to turn on the air-conditioning. Floyd says, "I can't breathe," a line he will repeat for the next 10 minutes.

At 8:16 officers Derek Chauvin and Tuo Thao arrive. They try to help get Floyd in the vehicle, but the muscular 6-foot-6 Floyd will not be subdued. "I want to lay on the ground," he tells the officers, and they oblige him.

At 8:20 the officers call in for a medical emergency likely for the cut Floyd sustained when he hit his face on the vehicle's plexiglass divider. At 8:21 they call again, now possibly concerned about his erratic behavior.

Once on the ground, face down, Floyd continues to struggle. Chauvin applies a common restraint that was featured in the Minneapolis police manual, but that was not allowed to be shown at trial.

For roughly six minutes of the famed "8 minutes and 46 seconds" during which Chauvin is alleged to be choking the life out of Floyd, Floyd continues to complain: "My stomach hurts," "I ate too many drugs," "I can't breathe."

The bystanders do not know he had been saying the latter for the prior 10 minutes. Nor do they know that the "Mama" Floyd calls for is his ex-girlfriend.

Lane questions whether Chauvin should roll Floyd on his side. "I think he's passing out," says Lane at one point. He appears to do just that. When the EMTs arrive, it is Lane who initiates CPR inside the vehicle.

Henein suggests that "Adam" may have been an informant, and the 911 call part of a sting. "Something just does not compute," she says correctly – but inconclusively.

The most powerful case the film does make concerns officer Thomas Lane. On just his fourth day on the job, he does everything he can to save Floyd from himself and is now rotting in a federal prison for his efforts.

Was it a hate crime? Keung is black, Thao Asian. Then, too, the film shows the Minnesota attorney general telling "60 Minutes," "We don't have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd's race as he did what he did."

So why exactly are these men in prison? We'll never know. The courts and the district attorney, Hall tells Henein, "are keeping you dummified in the lack of knowledge."

"The Real Timeline" will debut on Jan. 16. It is must see for anyone who cares about justice.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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