One of the truths of the modern liberal societies is that helping the poor is a lucrative way to make a living. America spend tends of billions on poverty programs, but most of the money ends up in the hands of middle-class bureaucrats and the wealthy interests who back these policies. The fact is, there’s a lot of money to be made in the ghetto, mostly by people who never set foot in the ghetto. This was posted over at Marginal Review and it provides some interesting facts about anti-poverty programs.

Liberals are shocked (shocked!) that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his co-partisans would consider cutting Medicaid, food stamps, Pell grants and other programs that serve the neediest Americans. They have accused Ryan of trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

But long before Ryan unveiled his “Path to Prosperity,” politicians of both parties had been redistributing government spending away from the truly destitute and toward everyone else.

In the past few decades, the federal social safety net has gotten lusher and, on its face, more generous. Spending on the major safety-net programs nearly quadrupled between 1970 and 2010, and that’s after adjusting for inflation and population growth, according to calculations by Robert A. Moffitt, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University. He included both “means-tested” programs that are explicitly intended to combat poverty (such as food stamps, Medicaid, housing aid, Head Start, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the earned-income tax credit) and social insurance programs (Medicare, Social Security, disability insurance, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance).

There have been, however, winners and losers during that massive expansion.

Since the mid-1990s, the biggest increases in spending have gone to those who were middle class or hovering around the poverty line. Meanwhile, Americans in deep poverty — that is, with household earnings of less than 50 percent of the official poverty line — saw no change in their benefits in the decade leading up to the housing bubble. In fact, if you strip out Medicare and Medicaid, federal social spending on those in extreme poverty fell between 1993 and 2004.

That’s right, the hero of the 1990’s actually reduced spending on the poor. It’s not mentioned in the article, but the Clinton years were a decade of greed, at least as it is defined by the Left. The worst abuses in finance, government and politics have their roots in the Clinton Era. The Boomers ran wild through the institutions of government as soon as they gained control. That included shifting money from the poor to their friends on Wall Street. It was a bust-out.

Since the early 1990s, politicians have deliberately shifted funds away from those perceived to be the most needy and toward those perceived to be the most deserving. The bipartisan 1996 welfare reform — like the multiple expansions of the earned-income tax credit — was explicit about rewarding the working poor rather than the non-working poor. As a result, total spending per capita on “welfare” slid by about two-thirds over the past two decades, even as the poverty rate for families has stayed about the same. Many welfare reformers would consider this a triumph. If you believe many of the poorest families are not out of work by choice, though, you might have a more nuanced view.

Meanwhile, there is probably greater political cover for expanding the safety net for the middle class (that is, the non-destitute). As mid-skill, mid-wage jobs have disappeared — what’s known as the hollowing-out of the labor market — middle-class families have lost ground and are demanding more government help. These middle-class families, alongside the elderly, are also substantially more likely to vote than are the poor. The feds have whittled away at welfare, and (almost) nobody has said boo; touch programs that the middle class relies on, and electoral retribution may be fierce.

What the blogger fails to understand is the welfare system has nothing to do with addressing poverty. It never has and it never will. At one level, it is riot insurance, keeping the populace in a city like Baltimore from burning the place to the ground. It is job number one for state government. The city government is just a criminal enterprise run by the locals as a skimming operation. The state, however, treats them as camp guards for a massive reservation. Welfare is just a part of the defense network.

Welfare is never sold this way. Americans want to believe they are special and that’s how the ruling class exploits them. Welfare is sold as a way to uplift the poor and give them opportunities to have the American dream. A great many middle and upper class people like getting some grace on the cheap through social welfare programs. That way, they can pretend they are doing something. It takes less work than charity and they can have more time to watch TV or shop for more crap on-line.

The welfare system is also a massive jobs program. Local government gets money for patronage jobs. Hiring an army of case workers, who just happen to be related to the ruling clan is good for business. State government gets money to run their patronage operations, which can often be testing grounds for the latest social engineering schemes. RomneyCare was just such an example. Of course, the massive bureaucracy at the Federal level is also another patronage racket.

That is the main attraction of guaranteed minimum income schemes is that they eliminate the need for a vast army of patronage workers. It also eliminates the ability of Congress to buy votes and bribes with the programs. The math does not make any sense, but it will be a way for the ruling class to trim the vast bureaucracy, when they no longer want to support it. They can sell it as a raise for the recipients and cost cutting measure for the tax payers.

Here’s a PBS version of the argument and here is a NYTimes version. The Left has some minor people out promoting it as the start of a campaign to make it their top issue next decade. Destroying health care started with a trial run in the 1980’s and three decades later they were finally able to swing the wrecking ball. In the near future, a minor candidate will run fro president on UBI. Then the next cycle a major candidate will run on it. Finally, it will be pushed through by the Left.