Another shocking statistic from the budget hawks at EPIC.

Based on the government’s own data, we spend twice as much on welfare as it would take to move every family in America above the poverty line. In other words, if we just gave these families enough cash to increase their income, no one would be in poverty.

Yet we spend twice that much and STILL have 36.8 million people who live in poverty.

One idea is the old Milton Friedman negative income tax. Scrap all the scores of welfare programs and the massive bureaucracy and simply provide a cash subsidy to any family under the poverty level, provided someone in the household is working full time.

That plan has flaws, but it’s hard to imagine anything less cost-effective than what we are doing now.  The welfare state makes a lot of people rich – but not those who are poor.