5 trillion gone.... poor poorer and you claim this money went to the poor?
A big chunk of it did, and a lot of it went to the middle class.
And a big chunk of it wasn't transfer payments at all, so it couldn't reasonably be said that this part was given to the poor, the rich, or the middle class. It was directly spent by the government not passed along to someone else.
Looking just at the transfer payments, they are mostly to all economic classes, or are focused on the poor, depending on the program.
The United States has the highest inequality and poverty rates in the OECD after Mexico and Turkey
Because the level to be considered poor is higher in the US.
The poorest 10% of Americans do far better than the poorest 10% in Mexico and Turkey, and do better than the poorest 10% in a number of wealthy countries.
coyoteblog.com
So you see the poorest 10% in the US have a higher income not just than the poorest 10% in Mexico and Turkey, but than the UK, Australia, Finland and Sweden, and within a few percentage points of Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Denmark, and only a bit further from Canada. Only the poorest 10% in Switzerland and Norway are wealthy enough to leave a major gap over the poorest 10% of Americans.
And in any case all of this is irrelevant to your "Bush equal reverse Robin Hood claim". How poor (or actually wealthy by world standards) the poorest 10% in the US are, is irrelevant to your claim that Bush took from the poor and gave to the rich. |
