You are still operating from a premise which I disagree with: That without a welfare state, huge numbers of people would be unable to participate in the "system." If you did not believe this, you wouldn't be arguing with me.

How the hell does someone collecting welfare participate in the "system?" Especially those who have done so for years? This person, however a fine example of humanity they may be, is essentially a parasite. Only when he gets a job or starts a business does he become productive, and really become a part of the "system."

The idea that without our current enormous levels of wealth-redistribution that the streets would be filled with starving revolutionaries is utter bullshit. I am almost fifty years old. I was there in 1965 before Medicare existed, or the War on Poverty. The Federal Budget, in constant dollars, was ONE THIRD what it is now. The streets were not filled with dying old people, or starving poor. My grandparents went to the doctors and paid reasonable bills. The economy was good, the military was funded at the height of the Cold War, NASA was heading for the Moon, and we were running about a $7 billion deficit. Don't you see something wrong here??

The one single fact that neither you, nor alcaray, or anyone else here can dispute with any honesty at all, is that our Federal Government is obviously spending far, far more than is necessary to perform the basic functions of a government. Yet the slightest hint of any real cuts is met with mass seppuku rituals on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Why does it never occur to liberals that the people telling them that gigantic government programs are essential, and that total carnage would result if they were cut, are the same people who RUN these programs? Or who gain political power from them?

When corporations tell you how good they are for society, and how important their work is, you laugh in their faces until you puke. Where is this razorsharp skepticism with the government's line of bull?

For the record, since you keep bringing it up:

Corporate welfare runs to about $75 billion a year in direct subsidies. This is true welfare, of which I heartily disapprove: subsidies and other taxpayer money paid directly to corporations for a variety of reasons, most of them specious. Liberals, who believe that all wealth is the property of the state, and that a tax uncollected is money that the state "spends," like to include tax breaks in the definition of corporate welfare. This can push the number as high as $150 billion.

Now, let's take a close look at non-corporate welfare from the 2003 budget. Out of all the wealth-redistribution programs, I will select only two:

Social Security $492 billion
Medicare/Medicade/SCHIP $425 billion

Total: $917 billion

This is about six times the corporate welfare number, if you include tax breaks. Twelve times corporate welfare if you don't. And this doesn't include all the other programs that take taxpayer money and gives it to the needy.

I am not defending corporate welfare at all. I just don't think its the major budget buster here.