A little with this report, anyway. Pew Research is an admirable organization that has given me buckets of food for thought and more than my share of blogging material to make use of, all without asking anything of me in return. Countless hours of entertainment for free. What could the organization possibly owe me? If anything, I owe it. Still, while this report might not be the Worst. Report. Ever., omission and obfuscation abound.
Entitled "A Bipartisan Nation of Beneficiaries", it opens by showing that a full 59% of Obama voters and 53% of Romney voters received benefits from at least one of the six major entitlement programs considered. Wow, looks like "the 47%" thing was an understatement! Voters tend to be a notch above non-voters and yet majorities of both parties' electorates are welfare queens! This graphic, presented later in the report, sheds some light on why the recipient percentages are so high, however:
Virtually all seniors have been on the public dole because medicaid and especially social security--which is there for the taking for everyone, the only restriction being geriatric--are included in the analysis. With the 65+ age bracket breaking 56%-44% for Romney, the inclusion of these universal old age government-provided benefits stacks the deck to make it appear as though Obama voters were hardly any more likely to be feeding at the public trough than Romney voters were. That, of course, is technically accurate, and it sheds some light on how politically perilous the Ryan budget plan was. Excepting defense, cuts in the rate of growth in these programs are among the least offensive to the Democratic party. But in the public mind, social security is something everyone pays into and subsequently is entitled to take from, while things like TANF and food stamps are there for those who are incapable of providing for themselves.
If Pew spun the findings as noted above but disaggregated the data in the index of the report, I wouldn't be whining, but the organization doesn't. It would be nice to know, for instance, the electoral breakdown among medicaid, TANF, food stamps, and unemployment insurance recipients without the inclusion of social security (which has the greatest number of recipients among the six programs considered) and medicare recipients in the mix. As written, the report clearly indicates that Pew has the data broken out in such a manner but intentionally doesn't report it as such, as doing so would show that the takers are squarely in Obama's camp.
There is still something to be gleaned from the report as is that will be of interest to regular readers, however. It's well known in these parts that women are leading the way towards our progressive leftist future. If only men had voted in November, Romney would've won as convincingly as Obama actually did. Why do women--especially the unmarried ones--like the welfare state so much? Because men foot the bill for it while they enjoy the lion's share of the benefits it provides. The percentages, by sex, who use none, one, two, and three or more of the six entitlement programs:
Entitled "A Bipartisan Nation of Beneficiaries", it opens by showing that a full 59% of Obama voters and 53% of Romney voters received benefits from at least one of the six major entitlement programs considered. Wow, looks like "the 47%" thing was an understatement! Voters tend to be a notch above non-voters and yet majorities of both parties' electorates are welfare queens! This graphic, presented later in the report, sheds some light on why the recipient percentages are so high, however:
Virtually all seniors have been on the public dole because medicaid and especially social security--which is there for the taking for everyone, the only restriction being geriatric--are included in the analysis. With the 65+ age bracket breaking 56%-44% for Romney, the inclusion of these universal old age government-provided benefits stacks the deck to make it appear as though Obama voters were hardly any more likely to be feeding at the public trough than Romney voters were. That, of course, is technically accurate, and it sheds some light on how politically perilous the Ryan budget plan was. Excepting defense, cuts in the rate of growth in these programs are among the least offensive to the Democratic party. But in the public mind, social security is something everyone pays into and subsequently is entitled to take from, while things like TANF and food stamps are there for those who are incapable of providing for themselves.
If Pew spun the findings as noted above but disaggregated the data in the index of the report, I wouldn't be whining, but the organization doesn't. It would be nice to know, for instance, the electoral breakdown among medicaid, TANF, food stamps, and unemployment insurance recipients without the inclusion of social security (which has the greatest number of recipients among the six programs considered) and medicare recipients in the mix. As written, the report clearly indicates that Pew has the data broken out in such a manner but intentionally doesn't report it as such, as doing so would show that the takers are squarely in Obama's camp.
There is still something to be gleaned from the report as is that will be of interest to regular readers, however. It's well known in these parts that women are leading the way towards our progressive leftist future. If only men had voted in November, Romney would've won as convincingly as Obama actually did. Why do women--especially the unmarried ones--like the welfare state so much? Because men foot the bill for it while they enjoy the lion's share of the benefits it provides. The percentages, by sex, who use none, one, two, and three or more of the six entitlement programs:
| Sex | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3+ |
| Men | 51% | 23% | 15% | 12% |
| Women | 39% | 22% | 19% | 19% |
0 comments:
Post a Comment