President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

We have spent over 19 trillion on welfare since LBJ started the war on poverty and it has only brought us several generations who are dependent on the government.

Multiple reports of welfare abuse have hit the headlines in recent weeks, from a million-dollar lottery winner receiving food stamps to a Massachusetts drug dealer attempting to use welfare cash to post bail and an Alabama nightclub advertising a “Food Stamp Friday” party.

These examples highlight the need to reform a welfare system that is contributing to a culture of entitlement. A crucial element of reform is tackling the ballooning costs of the welfare state, which has become the fastest growing part of government spending.

In a hearing on Tuesday headed by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI), Heritage senior fellow Robert Rector discussed the major growth in welfare costs and how to get spending under control.

First, Rector dispelled the myth that the 1996 welfare reforms ended “welfare as we know it.” In fact, he noted, since 1996 the U.S “spends 50 percent more on means-tested cash, food and housing than it did when Bill Clinton entered office on a promise to ‘end welfare as we know it.’”

The reforms have been significantly watered down over the last several years, and as Rector explained on Tuesday, they touched only one of dozens of federal welfare programs:

The public is almost totally unaware of the size and scope of government spending on the poor. This is because Congress and the mainstream media always discuss welfare in a fragmented, piecemeal basis. Each of the 79 programs is debated in isolation as if it were the only program affecting the poor. This piecemeal approach to welfare spending perpetuates the myth that spending on the poor is meager and grows little, if at all.

In reality, welfare programs are costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year. In fiscal year 2011, total welfare costs equaled $927 billion ($717 billion from the federal government and $210 billion from states).

From a historical perspective, since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s, the government has spent $19.8 trillion (inflation-adjusted) to fund a growing list of welfare programs. As Rector points out, this is nearly three times “the cost of all military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan.”

Yet, despite current annual welfare costs already twice the amount necessary “to lift all Americans out of poverty,” as Rector noted, President Obama plans to increase welfare spending. Welfare costs have already grown by a third since he came to office in 2009. And this isn’t temporary spending due to the recession. President Obama plans to grow welfare such that by 2022 costs will reach $1.56 trillion. Based on President Obama’s plan, in the next decade U.S. taxpayers will fork out roughly $12.7 trillion on welfare.

To control the burgeoning costs, Rector explained that Congress must put a cap on aggregate welfare spending. Once the current recession ends or by 2013 at the latest, welfare funding should be rolled back to pre-recession levels (adjusted for inflation) and then allowed to grow thereafter only at the rate of inflation. This would save U.S. taxpayers more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years. In addition to the spending cap, Congress should tackle the causes of poverty by promoting self-reliance through work requirements and time limits as well as efforts to strengthen marriage in low-income communities.

Pouring more federal dollars into welfare is creating a burden on taxpayers and promoting a system of government dependence. Reforming welfare by getting costs under control and promoting personal responsibility is an approach that not only respects American taxpayers but also benefits individuals in need.

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President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Below is an article from the Heritage Foundation:

Don’t be fooled, though, by thinking that tackling waste alone or combining a handful of programs will solve the country’s twin crises of spending and debt. Waste is deplorable and unacceptable, yet it is small in comparison to the trillion-dollar-plus deficits recorded in recent years. More importantly, it is not the main contributor to Washington’s spending problem. The three major entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—constitute the lion’s share of current spending.

The future portends an even more oppressive burden from entitlement spending. The first baby boomers have reached retirement already, and millions more will become eligible for Medicare and Social Security benefits. Entitlement spending is on track to eclipse all tax revenues, meaning at that point the federal government would have to tax or borrow money to fund all other programs.

Congress and the President are expected to spend today’s taxpayer dollars wisely. They can accomplish this by rooting out waste, eliminating duplicative programs, and returning to a more limited government at the federal level. All of this will help restore Americans’ trust in their government. But to assure Americans that their children can have an even more prosperous future than they had, Congress should do the hard work of proposing entitlement program reforms—reforms that will get spending under control and unshackle future generations from crushing levels of taxes and debt.

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President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I wish the federal government would go back to spending less than 5% of GDP like they did the first 150 years of our country’s history. We could cut down on a lot of wasteful spending if we did that.

In a speech yesterday in Elyria, Ohio — a small town just outside Cleveland sitting at the forks of the Black River — President Barack Obama delivered a politically charged speech in which he hearkened back to the country’s roots, saying that his opponents “don’t seem to remember how America was built.” In his view, taxpayers want their money spent in ways that will help further “the larger project we call America.” In other words, more spending and bigger government paid for with higher taxes.

In a city quite unlike Elyria, thousands of miles west, sprawling forth from the desert just east of Death Valley, officials from this federal government provided the latest example of what happens when the president’s philosophy succeeds — when layer upon layer of government grows so big that it begins to serve the interests of a ruling class, rather than the people from whom it derives its power. Two years ago in Las Vegas, the General Services Administration (GSA) — a little-known federal agency that helps manage other federal agencies — blew through $820,000 in taxpayer funds for a lavish, booze-fueled conference for 300 employees, complete with magic shows, margaritas, and a self-produced rap video making fun of the spending. (It’s worth mentioning that in 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asked White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for help in encouraging government meetings to be held in Nevada.)

That’s just the giant tip of the iceberg for this wasteful behemoth, as reports have emerged of other taxpayer-financed “business trips,” including junkets to Hawaii, South Pacific islands, California’s Napa Valley and Palm Springs. A hotline has been set up for employee tips on wrongdoing, and this week the House is conducting hearings on the GSA’s gross abuse of taxpayer funds.

Sadly, government waste, fraud and abuse isn’t limited to just one agency. Look no further than the Department of Energy (DOE) whose inspector general said yesterday that he’s overseeing 250 to 300 open criminal investigations into the “entire spectrum of DOE activities,” including 100 reviews involving more than $35 billion in stimulus dollars, according to Politico. In addition, it was reported that the investigators are looking into the “use of thousands of outside contractors, federal money being diverted for personal use, false data in grant and loan applications, conflicts of interest and incomplete and inferior work from DOE weatherization grant winners.” To date, those investigations have led to eight criminal prosecutions and the recovery of $2.3 million.

How commonplace is this waste? Given the sheer size and scope of the government — which is set to spend $6.3 trillion this year — it’s impossible to say. But just as pernicious as the countless billions that have been squandered is the cancerous attitude that has taken hold in Washington and that is metastasizing across the land. It’s one of thoughtless entitlement in which individuals who live off the bureaucratic beast reflexively take and spend more all while doing less, giving no consideration to those who fuel their appetites.

Of course, that mindset is not exclusive to the federal level, and examples abound of government employees taking from the public coffers. Just this week in our nation’s capital, 90 city employees were suspended for receiving unemployment benefits while still holding city jobs, and 40 former city workers cashed unemployment checks that they weren’t entitled to. All told, the city paid out some $800,000 in illegitimate benefits. But it’s not just about outright theft. It’s also about out-of-whack expectations that one is entitled to receive without doing. In Michigan, for example, a public school teacher is advising her students not to become teachers because under a new state law, she won’t be able to retire at age 47 as she hoped.

Contrary to what those on the left might believe, this swollen government is not what was intended.

Flowing from the  Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution, the federal government was designed on the principle that the ultimate authority of a legitimate government depends on the consent of a free people. As Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III writes in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, “Nature does not single out who is to govern and who is to be governed; there is no divine right of kings. Nor are rights a matter of legal privilege or the benevolence of some ruling class.” Yet in this government, a privileged few are acting outside those bounds with the expectation that they have the right to do as they please, unfettered by any obligation to the people.

Under the Obama Administration, the situation has gotten worse. The president turns to bigger government and higher taxes as a solution to every problem. On health care, unemployment, education and energy, Obama has reflexively pursued a policy of more is more — more spending paid for with more taxes. This week served up another prime example when the president called for increased regulations and $52 million in spending to combat high gas prices — even though he admitted that the measures wouldn’t have any immediate impact on the price at the pump.

As the people lose control over this unrestrained government, those with the most cash are the ones with a voice. In an interview last week with The New York Times, former Democratic congressman Patrick Kennedy revealed that access to the Obama White House is a “quid pro quo” based on how much money one contributes to the president’s campaign. That news, though, likely is not a shock to an American people who have come to expect the worst, not the best, from Washington. However, that is not how America was built, it’s not the government we must have, nor is it the one that the Founders envisioned.

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