A report from the Congressional Research Service released today finds that welfare spending is now the largest federal budget item. Presently, the federal government spends $745.84 billion to support 83 of these welfare programs.
The costs are astronomically high–and they are likely only to continue to rise.
According to the data from the Congressional Research Services, over the next 10 years, the federal government will spend $8.295 trillion to separate the ten costliest programs. (This does not even take into account the 73 other welfare programs!)
Here’s a chart from the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee that shows the top most expensive programs are likely to grow (in terms of cost):
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And here’s a breakdown of the programs, and how much they’ll cost over the next ten years, according to government projections:
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If one were to try to account for projected spending of all welfare programs combined, the cost would be about $12.7 trillion. “According to the President’s budget plans for fiscal year 2013, means-tested welfare will not decline as the recession ends, but will continue to grow rapidly for the next decade. Overall, President Obama plans to spend $12.7 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade,” the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector writes.
Rector adds: “If converted to cash, means-tested welfare spending is more than sufficient to bring the income of every lower-income American to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, roughly $44,000 per year for a family of four. (This calculation combines potential welfare aid with non-welfare income currently received by the poor.)”
