More than $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) has been spent on welfare and other government provisions, in the US. This number would obviously increase with the guarantee to the right to housing. Do you think plunging the US further in debt would be worth fulfilling the promises of these rights?

In what time period, and what do you define as "government provisions"?

Is the Army a government provision?

If you guarantee health care, raise the minimum wage to keep up with inflation (we haven't done this), and offer rent-controlled options for low-income families, I think the problem will mostly take care of itself.

By government provisions I meant money spent on individuals or families that couldn't effectively support themselves. So government spending on medical bills for those unfit to pay would fit my definition of provision, while military spending would not be a provision. It's a TOTAL of one trillion spent on families on welfare

If the minimum wage is raised, businesses like McDonalds would use sneaky techniques to compensate. It's believed that the amount of people working on minimum wage would decrease by almost 5%

Other compensation techniques would be decreasing hours for workers. Along with this, the price of food and goods and such that came from places currently paying less than $15 would obviously increase. Which would decrease demand, which would lead to the degradation of many businesses

"If you guarantee health care, raise the minimum wage to keep up with inflation (we haven't done this), and offer rent-controlled options for low-income families, I think the problem will mostly take care of itself."

In theory yes, in practice, not-so-much.

One trillion dollars over what time period? Since 1945? In the past week?

I've just used figures I remember from previous research, but here's a Washington Post article saying 668 billion dollars is spent on welfare by the federal government every year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/01/12/no-we-dont-spend-1-trillion-on-welfare-each-year/?utm_term=.120d2a874190

oops. They argued 212 billion

How do you get "one trillion" from "212 billion"??

You are just making shit up because "one trillion" sounds like a big scary number. Get out of here with your fake news.

So you are offended by welfare.... but not bankruptcy, or bailouts....
Interesting

@Brainbomb: Helping people is morally wrong unless they are rich - duh.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwimle-fsKnSAhUP62MKHUXICFcQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fiscal.treasury.gov%2Ffsreports%2Frpt%2FmthTreasStmt%2Fmts1116.xls&usg=AFQjCNFgAeuH3ivxm6afmaeJUFHHTsxQmw&sig2=IRVsjcDpAQyHqUBsm9T8OA

Check out figure 4

https://www.hhs.gov/about/budget/FY2014-summary-of-performance/financial-summary/index.html?language=es#table2

welfare isn't comprehensive enough of an analysis of our government's spending habits.

"If the minimum wage is raised, businesses like McDonalds would use sneaky techniques to compensate. It's believed that the amount of people working on minimum wage would decrease by almost 5%"

That's not "sneaky", that's an unsubstantiated claim derived from basic economics.

the economic argument for a minimum wage, it has to be a wage floor at the equilibrium wage of a purely competitive market.

what this does is it makes monopolies operate as if at perfect competition.

of course if our government weren't in the business of creating monopolies, this problem wouldn't have gotten so out of hand.

the ethical argument for a minimum wage is entirely different, and it doesn't allow for minimum wage in many conclusions.

in any case, monopolies can undercut small business in a slew of other ways, so we end up having to lower the minimum wage to make sure monopolies don't retain power.

thus you get this back and forth that could be solved if regulations were
1. sensible
2. well defined
3. devoid of loopholes
4. not in excess

sadly this is not the case

I propose that if there is unemployment-related homelessness, the government (i.e., arm of the American people) should provide housing assistance to the less-fortunate citizens. Then, when the jobs-market improves, it should be allowed to withdraw/reduce the assistance.

that's not an unpopular opinion to take, and we did have a surplus of houses seized after 2008. frankly i'm not sure how stable the housing market is, so policy that would be enacted... i'm not sure what it would look like!

also we'd have to do some big tax increases to fund the housing... it'd be difficult legislation to pass

@jamiet. If you read the article I sent you'd know where I got 1 trillion from. In fact.. if you even read the URL you'd know where I got it from

yeah it's state+federal. not a mind blowing realization. besides welfare alone isn't the greatest measure of services rendered.

FY 2016:
Medicare -- $586 billion ($583 billion budgeted). Payroll taxes and premiums fund 57% of the cost.
Medicaid -- $369 billion ($351 billion budgeted). Paid out of the general fund.
All other -- $621 billion ($497 billion budgeted). Food Stamps, and Supplemental Security for the Disabled are paid out of the general fund. Unemployment Compensation is partially funded by payroll taxes.
The Affordable Care Act and TARP are self-funded.

@JamesYanik, it's argued that the government money spent on crime charges and hospital bills from the homeless is greater than the amount of money that would be spent on housing of the homeless. However, this idea is dependent upon a positive outtake on human nature

I could potentially see that, though honestly i'm not trusting anything until i got the data at my fingertips

i still don't understand why people don't think of medicaid as welfare; needy, disability and dependents. it's just taxpayer funded

It's welfare when others get it, it's earned when they get it.

I think the best way to argue the negative of this resolution is with the value of justice.
Aristotle defined justice as each man, "receiving what he is due"