Valuetainment - America's Trillion Dollar Burden： Is Welfare Destroying the U.S. Economy？

00:00:00.000 Do you have anybody in your family that overextended themselves by trying to help

00:00:03.500 everybody in their family that eventually led to a divorce and a bankruptcy? Can you think about

00:00:07.640 that person? I want you to think about this here. Let's just say you're making $63,000 per year,

00:00:12.340 which is roughly $5,200 per month. What percentage of that income would you be comfortable giving to

00:00:18.320 aging parents to help them out on a monthly basis? Maybe you said 10%. What's 10%? Roughly

00:00:24.400 $500 a month. Fine. Now you may say, why are we using $63,000? Here's why. Because if you add

00:00:29.880 eight additional zeros to it, you would come out with America's income, which is roughly $6.3

00:00:35.900 trillion. However, do you know what percentage of that income America uses for entitlement programs?

00:00:41.600 Ready? 52%. That means if you made $63,000 per year, you would give $33,000 away for entitlement

00:00:50.780 programs. That's what we're doing in America right now. By the way, of the $3.3 trillion of

00:00:55.000 entitlement program, $1.3 trillion of it is only towards welfare. That's 59 million Americans that

00:01:01.700 on a monthly basis receive a welfare check. 19% of America. So the question becomes, is this

00:01:08.900 sustainable? How long can America go until we go bankrupt? We're going to talk about that today.

00:01:14.240 Okay. So if you give value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel.

00:01:17.480 Let's get right into it. So why are we talking about welfare? Because Biden just proposed that he wants

00:01:21.720 to take that $1.3 trillion, of which $756 goes to Medicaid, $208 goes to other income security,

00:01:29.440 $147 goes to food and nutrition, like food stamps, $124 goes to housing, Section 8, $70 billion goes to

00:01:35.840 unemployment. President Biden wants to raise that to $2.6 trillion. And it stays like that till 2033,

00:01:44.060 costing you and I roughly $12.7 trillion over the next 10 years. Okay. So now let's break that down,

00:01:51.080 the $2.6 trillion to see where that money is going to be spending. Let's look all the way at the top.

00:01:55.120 Child tax credit expansion for three years, $470 billion. By the way, we're going to go a little

00:01:59.940 bit deeper into this program to see what that program is really all about. Government child care,

00:02:04.140 424. Government paid family leave, 325. Government preschool, $200 billion. For states to expand Medicaid,

00:02:11.200 $200 billion. Expand Indian Health Service, 185. Medicaid home and community-based care,

00:02:16.520 $150. Expand AITC, $137 billion. Expand Obamacare subsidies, $130 billion. Then we have

00:02:22.840 double Pell Grant, $96 billion. Free community college, $90 billion. Expand housing subsidies,

00:02:26.680 $60 billion. Public health, $43 billion. Behavioral health, equity-based tuition subsidies. Expand

00:02:31.280 school meal subsidies. Extend trade adjustment assistance and Medicaid nutrition coverage,

00:02:35.620 total $2.6 trillion. It's interesting when I'm looking at these numbers because Cenk Uygur and I

00:02:39.920 got into a debate specifically over this topic. You'll see what it is, but let me first explain to you

00:02:43.280 what this child tax credit is. You know what's the crazy thing about all this money we're printing?

00:02:46.640 Every time we print trillions, oh, let's do $2.6 trillion. Guess who that money goes to? It

00:02:50.580 goes to low and middle income, but low and middle income families don't know how to keep their money.

00:02:53.800 They spend their money and that money eventually flows to who? To the wealthy. And what increases

00:02:57.300 value? These non-duplicatable assets. One of the classes being alternative assets such as art.

00:03:02.740 This is why today's sponsor is Masterworks. So what is Masterworks? Look, you know how many times we

00:03:06.460 watch and say, oh, wow, look at Jamie Dimon's got a $900 million art collection, but I can't afford to buy art

00:03:10.860 like that, but maybe you can afford to buy a piece of the art, maybe a share of it, kind of like you

00:03:14.840 buy stock in Apple, but you can't buy the whole $3 trillion company. That's when Masterworks start.

00:03:18.620 They buy a million dollar painting, for example, and you're able to own a piece of it. While a single

00:03:23.720 return is not a guarantee of future returns, their 15th exit of painting a Cecily Brown piece just sold

00:03:30.220 a few days ago for a return of 77.3% annualized net return. Again, that's not a guarantee, but this is

00:03:36.060 one thing you need to know. The last 27 years, blue chip whole contemporary art has outpaced the

00:03:42.040 S&P 500 by an impressive 136%. That's pretty impressive. And by the way, collectively, I think

00:03:48.480 all arts they've sold, Masterworks is around $45 million. So if you want to participate with

00:03:52.620 Masterworks, they got 790,000 users now, roughly $800 million of assets under management. So if you,

00:03:58.960 again, if you can't own a Warhol or Banksy or Picasso yourself, but you want to own a share of it,

00:04:03.720 you can go to masterworks.com forward slash Valuetainment or click on a link below to get

00:04:08.000 access today. The American Rescue Plan increased the amount of child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600

00:04:14.360 for qualifying children under age 6 and $3,000 for other qualifying children under the age of 18. So

00:04:20.600 just think about it. The more kids you have, and if you're not in a marriage, you get more money given

00:04:24.960 to you by the government. Guess what that incentivizes? We're going to talk about that here in a minute.

00:04:28.540 Wait till you see the data on that. Second one, child care. Biden 2024 proposal includes

00:04:33.240 $22 billion for existing early care and education programs up from 10.5% from 2023 levels,

00:04:39.420 including $9 billion for federal block grants. Paid family leave. The proposed program would

00:04:43.920 provide workers up to 12 paid weeks off to bond with a new child, care for a family member, or heal

00:04:50.140 from their own serious illness. So now you may be watching and saying, Pat, I get it. Where are you

00:04:54.440 going with this? We have to help these people. They need help. What should we do? Just leave them

00:04:58.420 alone? Well, let me give you an idea how we got here because if you don't pay attention to this stuff,

00:05:01.360 you're paying for it, your tax is going to increase. During the Great Depression, FDR wanted

00:05:05.820 to come out with a temporary solution to help those who couldn't take care of themselves.

00:05:10.860 Eventually, by 1935, at the State of Union address, FDR declared the time has come for action

00:05:17.060 by the national government to provide security against the major hazards and uncertainties of

00:05:22.480 life. He went on to propose the creation of the federal unemployment, the old age insurance

00:05:26.220 program. He also called for guaranteed benefits for poor single mothers and their children,

00:05:30.440 along with other dependent persons. And a few months later, the Social Security Act established

00:05:34.900 a national welfare system. Keep in mind, prior to this time, we don't have entitlement programs,

00:05:39.140 okay? We're getting by with no entitlement programs. All of a sudden, he announces that it's supposed

00:05:43.680 to be temporary and guess what happens? Becomes permanent. But the key word here is the following.

00:05:48.520 Guaranteed benefits for poor single mothers and their children, along with other dependent 0.96

00:05:53.820 persons. Let's see. They say bad policies has consequences. Did this influence how many new

00:06:00.180 single mothers we had in America? Did it influence how our kids did? Let's look at the data. So this

00:06:05.460 chart right here is from the U.S. Government Census Bureau, okay? And it's showing you the growth of

00:06:09.720 unwed childbearing in U.S. from 29. Notice if you look at 1935, flat, less than 4% of the babies born

00:06:16.840 are born to a single mother. That means 96% of all babies born in 1940 were born to a family where there's a

00:06:25.620 mother and a father. 96%. Then that goes from there to now, 40% of babies being born are born to a

00:06:35.300 single mother, not married, no father figure. You know what this tells you? We can look at one other 0.97

00:06:40.320 data. If you go to 1964, which was the War on Poverty, this is the program that Lyndon Johnson

00:06:45.260 came up with. He launched the Medicare and Medicaid and expanded housing subsidies, urban development

00:06:49.720 programs, employment and training programs, food stamps, social security, and welfare benefits.

00:06:53.500 These programs more than tripled real federal expenditure on health, education, and welfare,

00:06:57.940 which grew to over 15% of the federal budget by 1970. Today, it's at 52%. Take a look at what

00:07:04.520 happens after 64 as well. Spike to 40%. So somebody may say, well, you know, how dare you make these

00:07:11.860 comparisons? Why would you do this? It's called data. And the great thing about data is the more years you

00:07:18.580 have to see if something's working or not. The proof is in the pudding. This doesn't lie. This is

00:07:24.020 numbers. These were bad policies that incentivized women to have kids out of wedlock. It's not me 0.98

00:07:31.860 telling you this. It's the data telling you this. So you may say, Pat, I need more data. No problem.

00:07:36.060 I'll give you more data. Here's another one to look at. Again, from the U.S. Census Bureau, if you look at

00:07:39.400 this, this is total families with children from 1959 till today. If you look at this, look at the top.

00:07:44.280 Married couple families with children. It's 25,000. You got to add three zeros to it because

00:07:49.800 it's in thousands, which means 25 million. We've been pretty much the same during that 60 year period,

00:07:54.820 whatever the timeline is. But if you look at the bottom in the red, single parent families with

00:07:59.480 children, we have three X'd in 60 years. More people are saying, all good. I'm going to have more 0.97

00:08:05.840 kids with no husband or wife being in the household together. These kids are being raised by a single

00:08:11.240 parent. Now you may say, Pat, I mean, it's just one program. It's not like we have so many

00:08:15.640 different programs. Let me read you all the programs and you tell me if you heard of these

00:08:18.440 before. First one, Earned Income Tax Credit, EITC, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF,

00:08:23.940 the Women, Infants, and Children Food Program, WIC, Supplemental Social Security Food Stamps and

00:08:28.780 Child Nutrition Programs, Public Housing and Section 8 Housing, and Medicaid. By the way, while married

00:08:33.480 couples with children can also receive aid from these programs, most assistance to families with

00:08:38.380 children goes to single parent households. 45.4% of families headed by single mothers receive food

00:08:43.400 stamps. 51.4% of single mothers have never been married. Welfare programs financially enable

00:08:50.740 single parenthood. Who does it hurt? The kids. And if the kids are raised without discipline,

00:08:55.760 who does it hurt? Your neighborhood. So this next part, I'm going to read it to you. What I want to

00:08:59.940 challenge you to do is actually follow it with me and listen to it while we're going through this.

00:09:04.460 You'll see why. Let's read this together. A major problem is that the means-tested welfare system 0.64

00:09:09.360 actively penalizes low-income parents, ready, who do marry, who do marry. You're incentivized if you

00:09:17.300 don't marry. You're penalized if you do get married. All means-tested welfare programs are

00:09:22.020 designed so that a family's benefits are reduced as earnings rise. The more money you make and you're

00:09:27.640 independent, your benefits go lower. You're like, why would I work harder to make more money? My benefits

00:09:32.800 are getting lower. I'm not going to work. So you're going to send me money? I am. That's what that

00:09:36.540 means. In practice, this means if a low-income single mother marries an employed father, her

00:09:41.980 welfare benefits will generally be substantially reduced. The mother can maximize welfare by 1.00

00:09:47.100 remaining unmarried and keeping the father's income off the books. Tell me that makes any sense

00:09:53.100 for you. If this is the incentive program that we have, what do you think people are going to do?

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00:10:21.460 dove.com to learn more. Maximize the benefits without having to work. For example, a single 0.87

00:10:27.660 mother with two children who earns $15,000 per year would generally receive around $5,200 per year of

00:10:33.140 food stamps benefits. However, if she marries a father with the same earnings level, her food stamps

00:10:37.340 would be cut to zero. A single mother receiving benefits from Section 8 or public housing would 0.74

00:10:43.300 receive a subsidy worth on average around $11,000 per year if she was not employed. But if she marries a

00:10:50.380 man earning $20,000 per year, those benefits would be cut nearly in half. Both food stamps and housing

00:10:56.820 programs provide very real financial incentives for couples to remain separated and unmarried.

00:11:03.380 So some people will say, Pat, stop it. You know, we have to take care of these folks. It's not like

00:11:06.880 these people are not self-sufficient. Why are you discriminating amongst these people? Let me give

00:11:10.740 you more data. I'm going to give you two of them. Marriage promotes self-sufficiency. These are

00:11:15.300 percentages of families with children that lack self-sufficiency. You see the 37.1%? This is

00:11:21.420 single-parent, female-headed families. 37.1% of them lack self-sufficiency. They need you and I,

00:11:28.980 the government taxpayers, to take care of them. But look at the other side. Married parent families, 0.79

00:11:34.580 only 6.8% need help. That means 93.2% are self-sufficient. And this next one is my favorite

00:11:41.060 chart. You know why? Because so many times you'll do something and at the beginning it looks good.

00:11:45.060 You see it's working. Look how awesome it is. Look what we're doing to reduce poverty. But you know

00:11:50.060 what this data shows? It shows it took us 55 years to realize how terrible of an idea this was. Take a

00:11:57.660 look at this chart. So 1947, if you look at all the way to the left, top, percentage of individuals who

00:12:02.840 were poor by the official poverty standard. Keeps going lower and lower and lower. What a noble program

00:12:08.480 by FDR. And boom, 64. Lyndon Johnson, lower, lower, lower. And they go to 1990. Look at the red.

00:12:14.880 Total means-tested welfare spending in billions of constant dollars goes higher and higher and higher.

00:12:23.340 And the blue stays. And this chart only goes to 2012. It's an additional 11 years since then.

00:12:30.800 We're at 52% of the 6.3 trillion. And by the way, this ends in 2013. There's an additional

00:12:38.260 10 years to it. What do you think it happened? You think it went lower? It went higher and higher

00:12:41.980 and higher. Today it's 52% entitlement programs. 59 million Americans receive welfare program today.

00:12:48.180 How long can we go with this to sustain it? We can't sustain it today, let alone 10 more years,

00:12:53.900 20 more years. And while politicians, you know what they're saying? Oh, you are so selfish if you

00:12:58.480 decide to get rid of these entitlement programs. There's no way you should re-elect this individual.

00:13:03.340 Why? He's giving you good ideas or she's giving you good ideas, but you're playing off of fear

00:13:08.740 because you've given people so many free entitlement programs that they're addicted to it. You know who

00:13:13.200 does things like that? You ever heard of drug dealers, what they do? They give you a little

00:13:17.240 bit of crack or cocaine or whatever, and then eventually, a little bit for free. Then, hey,

00:13:21.560 pay up. Then pay up. Now they're like, they can't get off of it. What happens? You ruined that

00:13:27.020 person's life. These people, the 59 million, what percentage of their dreams they think is going to

00:13:32.960 become a reality? What do you think? All of that was taken away from them. Done. Done. Just because

00:13:39.560 you give a little bit of drugs, let's replace it with some entitlement programs. Same consequences. 1.00

00:13:44.440 You're hurting these people long-term. You're loving them over short-term, but you're destroying

00:13:48.280 their lives long-term. So a few things, I've been watching and saying, Pat, you know, what do you want

00:13:51.820 us to do? Do we just cut this whole thing all of a sudden? Of course, we can't do that suddenly, but

00:13:55.820 what if we take that $3.3 trillion that we have, and every year we cut at 10%, meaning 3.3 goes to

00:14:02.220 3, goes to 2.7, maybe 2.5, maybe 2.3, maybe 2.1. Eventually, within the next 15, 20 years,

00:14:09.580 we're down to a very small amount of money that we're giving to this. Oh, Pat, there's no way that

00:14:13.840 would, I understand it's not going to, because these congressmen with unlimited terms they can run,

00:14:18.840 they're never going to pass something like this, because you need term limits, and they're not going

00:14:21.900 to let that happen. I'm just telling you that's the solution, because long-term, if you don't agree to this,

00:14:25.240 you know who's getting screwed? The kids and our grandkids. And all we're saying is, guys,

00:14:29.320 you can handle it. You go out and handle all these problems. I'll give you another one here for you

00:14:32.520 as well. If we're rewarding behavior for people to have more kids, and we're going to give them

00:14:36.960 entitlement programs, what do you think people are going to do? What if we do the other way around?

00:14:39.980 What if we reward people who are married having kids with a job? What if we do that? Oh my God,

00:14:44.980 you think people will change? Of course they've changed. I've ran a sales organization for 23 years.

00:14:48.520 I've run my own insurance company for the last 14 years. Do you know how many times I change a

00:14:51.920 compensation program? 50, 60, 70 times. You know what happens when I had a comp where people were

00:14:57.720 writing bogus insurance business, but they were just kind of writing business because they were

00:15:00.860 competing, and I changed it. Overnight, all the bogus business disappeared. Like, literally,

00:15:05.960 overnight, the bad business disappeared, because the incentive program I came up with wasn't a good

00:15:10.660 one. So we had to change it. What happened? Suddenly, everyone's income went up. And the people that,

00:15:15.280 you know, were doing their thing, they were improving. They were making an effort to get better,

00:15:18.720 because the incentive program changed. We also have to change the incentive programs that we have.

00:15:23.680 But last but not least, let me give you the most important one. I got four kids. My dad, when I

00:15:27.640 was, I don't know how old I was, eight years old, nine years old, told me a story about being a man.

00:15:31.320 He says, Pat, let me tell you the story here. I told the story in Austin a couple weeks ago. He said

00:15:35.440 this to me. He says, Pat, one day, father wakes up his son. It was summer, so the kid wasn't going to

00:15:40.140 school. He says, son, today you're going to become a man. He says, what do you mean I'm going to become a man?

00:15:43.980 You need to go out there and make $5 today. The son says, dad, I'm 12 years old. I'm 11.

00:15:48.700 I'm 11 years old. What do you mean I need to go make $5? He says, you need to go make $5 today to be a man today.

00:15:53.160 I said, dad, come on, dad, I'm a kid. No reason. Boom. Papa leaves. Dad leaves. Son is like, $5. My God, mom,

00:15:59.960 I shouldn't work. It's not safe out there. Mom says, don't worry about it, baby. Here's $5. When daddy comes home,

00:16:04.860 just give it to him. Daddy, you made $5. It's between you and I. No problem. Dad comes home. Did you make your $5?

00:16:09.200 Of course, dad. I made the $5. Here's the $5, daddy. Awesome. Dad grabs the $5, throws it in the fireplace.

00:16:17.720 The fire starts burning the $5. Mommy chases after the $5. Daddy realized mommy gave the kid $5.

00:16:24.300 He says, son, you didn't make the $5. Kid goes to sleep, feels like crap, wakes up in the morning. 0.99

00:16:29.060 Dad says, hey, today, you got to make $5. Dad goes to work. Son goes to mom. Hey, mom, can I give, 0.98

00:16:34.340 I'm not giving you nothing. He's not going to burn another $5 of mine. You got to go figure this thing

00:16:37.960 out. Son goes up, starts begging everybody in the community, starting with his uncle. And his uncle,

00:16:43.020 finally, after begging a few different relatives, he raises $5 through begging. Entitlement programs

00:16:49.120 through begging, he gets $5. Comes home. Mom, guess what? I got $5. I talked to uncle this,

00:16:53.960 uncle that, auntie this. Awesome. Good job, babe. Dad comes home. Son, did you make $5? Yeah,

00:16:58.740 daddy. Look at this. $5 bills. Dad grabs it. Boom. Throws in the fire. Why would you do that? You didn't

00:17:04.440 make $5. How do you know? Trust me. I know. Tomorrow, you best make $5. Dad wakes up, goes

00:17:12.160 to son. Hey, $5 today. Goes to work. Mom, no. Begging, no. And she goes across the street to 0.85

00:17:18.060 say, man, can I work for you? I need to make $5. I said, or else my dad's going to chew

00:17:21.340 me out. He said, I can't give you $5, but I give you a penny for each sandbag you move

00:17:25.080 from here to over there. Only a penny, only a penny. This kid, 11, 12 years old, only moves

00:17:30.200 150 sandbags. Gets $1.50 and change. Dad comes home. Son is sweaty, dirty hands. Says,

00:17:36.000 son, did you make $5? He says, no. I made $1.50. Puts the money in dad's hands. Dad

00:17:40.420 grabs the money, throws it in the fireplace. The son runs into the fireplace, starts picking

00:17:45.040 up this money. Dad hugs him. He says, son, today I know for a fact you worked for that

00:17:51.660 $1.50. You know why? Because you were willing to burn your hands because you paid the price

00:17:56.440 for this. You're officially a man. I am so proud of you. I think we need to start believing

00:18:01.360 in the American people that you are better than this. You can figure out a way to make

00:18:06.620 money. If you're not in a good situation to have kids, don't have kids. I think too many

00:18:11.660 people are pressured to have kids simply because of these bogus incentive programs that we have.

00:18:16.640 If we start believing in our people, we change the incentive programs, we challenge our guys

00:18:21.240 to start dreaming again, having value in themselves again. Eventually, one day we're going to wake

00:18:25.480 up realizing we don't need to waste all our money, your money, my money, 52% on people

00:18:31.260 and steal their dreams away from them. Instead, we've developed a whole new generation of leaders

00:18:36.400 and America's future looks bright. If you got value out of this video, give it a thumbs up,

00:18:41.540 subscribe to the channel, and I got another video for you. If you've never watched the

00:18:44.540 history of social security, click here to watch it. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

Valuetainment - August 22, 2023

America's Trillion Dollar Burden： Is Welfare Destroying the U.S. Economy？

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