Blaming it on welfare is just ridiculous.

First of all, I'd separate riots from looting.

I think riots are usually started by groups of people who feel discriminated/underprivileged, and they usually start when something potentially scandalous happens to someone who these people consider "one of us", as they consider it a proof of discrimination/being treated differently.

I think looting on the other hand is a different story. People will loot simply because they feel the risk is low. Looting starts as soon as people get the impression that police etc. do not have control over the situation any more. That's the case during riots, but it can happen in completely different situations as well (think of Iraq when the US troops came for example - as soon as people realized that the police isn't working anymore and that the US troops won't interfere, pretty much everyone started looting)
If looting happens during riots, the rioters will obviously be the first to loot, but as soon as other people see that police has lost control and the risk of being caught for looting is low, lots of people will do it even if they would have never taken part in the riots.

I included the main program that makes people think that people are getting a check and sitting home drinking beer and living well off the rest of us. Medicaid is money that is paid to Dr's, clinics, hospitals, etc.   Unemployment is insurance that business's pay specifically for when they lay off people.  The lower the amount of people you layoff the lower your premium is, the higher amount the higher you pay.

So in otherwords... not really... as no... that's not what makes people think that.  It's a combination of all of the above.

Medicaid is paid to doctors... so those people don't have to, etc, etc etc,

I think you just picked it because you liked the way the numbers looked that way.

Afterall, someone could make the exact same arguement with defense by using all of welfare and picking only certain parts of defense chosen for the hell of it.

This is the same social security that people pay into their whole life, right? You don't think it's suspicious that the constant contributions from the American people, and it's still the largest on the graph?

Social security actually has a 2.6 Trillion dollar SURPLUS, but since your corrupt government has been putting their hand in, constantly pulling money from social security to fund other things, now they're complaining that they have to pay it back. I wouldn't call that a failure of the social security itself.

Instead treating us like adults and allowing us to actually keep the money that we earn and save it for our own retirements (or not, as we see fit), our notoriously spending-addicted government insists on taking a chunk out of our every paycheck with the promise that it will give it back to us when we're all grown up. That's a pretty ridiculous premise. Whether it's a failure of social security or just a failure of the dumb assholes who are in charge of social security amounts to the same thing.

 A) I never mentioned social security... anywhere.  I wasn't counting social security.  Since you could argue it wasn't welfare so much as a forced awful pension system.

So i don't know wher you got "The same social security" from.

B) Also, not really.  Social Security never had a surplus.

Social Security money was always spent right as it was gathered, money replaced by US Bonds.

Saying social security has a surplus is like saying that I spend 100 dollars of my retirement fund write myself an IOU for 1 million dollars promise myself half a million, then claim i have a half a million surplus.

Those bonds hold zero real value as can be seen by the fact that the government can change the requirements for receiving them whenever they want.

It's more along the lines of giving money to someone to hold, yet they cannot help but spend it on themselves. Since 1983, social security has been getting prepared for when the boomers go into retirement. So where'd it go? Used to find wars for oil or tax cuts for the wealthy perhaps? Either way, it's summed up by one word: Stealing.

That's a completely different issue altogether. Though the difference is, if the people were really in charge of that money, it would be theirs to do what they like with it. However, I'm willing to bet that if Social security gets cut, that money won't be going the employee's way...

Except that's not "Since 1983.'

It's been happening since the start of Social Security.

When social security was "raided" it was just some of those worthless bonds being used to pay for other things.

Nothing more then a "clever" book keeping move.

There never was any cash "prepared" for when the boomers go into retirement.  It was all the afore mentioned IOUs.

So in otherwords, it's like prepairng to pay your rent next month, by writing more IOUS for money that equals your rent for next month.... but then giving those IOUS to your friends to cover them buying you a TV.

First you say social security NEVER generated a surplus, now you say "Oh, only before 1983". Can you make up your mind here?

And the uniqueness about pre-1983 social security was that there was a much higher ratio of worers paying into social security than retirees taking out, which was when the boomer generation was working. This is why the measures for surplus were taken in 1983 to generate a surplus because they foresaw the decrease in worker to retiree ratio. Now, social security had enough to pay it's way until 2037, that is until government robbed that piggy bank to buy votes.

you've got it mixed up. The ones writing IOUs are the Income tax, taking the money that is rightfully the American workers in social security and replacing it with IOUs. Now that they find themselves having to pay it back...suprise suprise, now one side wants to scrap it completely. Talk about being untrustworthy with paying back what you owe....