“You special snowflakes all make decisions based on feelings. You don’t care about the facts.”
“It’s not prejudiced, it’s just the hard truth. You have to tell it like it is.”
“It goes against my right of free speech to not be able to express my opinion.”
Has anyone ever said a line similar to those listed above to you? Maybe you’ve said some of these yourself? While political debates- whether they are friendly or not- are seen as just an expression of opinion by most people, some people go around spreading false factual information which may be harmful to not just other people but even themselves. So, today, I will be going over some common misconceptions and the truth behind these, and how this false information can cause more problems than solutions.
Misconception #1- My tax dollars are paying for people on welfare who are lazy and on drugs.
This one’s kind of a double entendre- both the ideas of what your tax dollars go towards and why people are on welfare. The breakdown of federal spending can be found here. Twenty-four percent of our spending goes to Social Security, which helps both the elderly in retirement and the disabled who are unable to work. Many people in the older generation are the ones who are more likely to vote Republican, and Donald Trump’s cabinet wants to cut social security and disability, meaning those heading into retirement age are only hurting themselves. Twenty-five percent pays for health insurance, including Medicare, Medicaid, children’s health insurance program, and the ACA (Affordable Care Act). (Fun fact, Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are the same thing. Many people will say they’re against it just by hearing the name, and then asked about the Affordable Care Act they will say they agree with it.) Medicare, like social security, pays for the elderly and disabled. I won’t go into the entire budget, but the point here is that 10 percent goes to all of the above- EARNED income tax credit, child tax credit, security income for the elderly and disabled, housing and SNAP benefits, and support of abused and neglected children. So, when people are complaining about money that goes into people on welfare- we’re talking about a fraction of 10 percent. About 109,631,000 people are on some form of welfare benefits . That’s 35.4 percent of the US population. So, are over a third of Americans sitting on their asses and not working and doing drugs? I’d certainly assume not! Also, most of these people are employed, and these jobs simply don’t pay a living wage. According to the Center for Labor Research and Education in Berkley, 52 percent of welfare recipients are fast food workers, 48 percent are home care workers, 46 percent are childcare workers and 25 percent are part-time college faculty. Clearly, this is over 100 percent meaning many of these people have two or more jobs. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t consider someone with two full-time jobs to be lazy and looking for a handout. There is a multitude of social and economic reasons people end up below the poverty line, too many for me to go into in this article. With that being said, supporting 1/3 of the country accounts for less than 10 percent of our federal budget. Oh, and those people pay taxes, too.
Misconception #2- Planned Parenthood’s funding is used mainly for abortion.
While senators have claimed that up to 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is provide abortion, that number is only three percent, and that three percent is ALREADY not federally funded! Most of Planned Parenthood’s services are about preventing unintended pregnancies and their education and giving of birth control options significantly prevents more unintended pregnancies than it does terminate them. In addition, Planned Parenthood provides gynecological visits and pap smears, STD testing and treatment, breast cancer screenings, and even testicular, prostate, and colon cancer screenings for men. So, people who are simply against abortion are asking to get rid of all these other important health services, too.
Misconception #3- Illegal Immigrants drain our resources by receiving all our benefits while not contributing to society.
Contrary to popular belief, immigrants contribute significantly more in tax revenue than they cost in benefits- about $80,000 over the course of a lifetime, on average. Undocumented immigrants are not even eligible for most welfare programs unless they are legal, permanent residents who have resided in the US for over five years. Even the programs for which they can use, they are less likely to use them. It has been found that overall, undocumented immigrants benefit the economy more than hurt it. In the Chicago area alone, they sustained 31, 908 jobs in 2001. For the most part, they do not take any jobs away from native-born citizens because they take jobs the native citizens do not want- farmers, construction workers, waste management, slaughterhouses, janitors, etc. (Not that there aren’t plenty of native-born workers in these jobs as well.) In addition, it is thought that many of them do not want to become citizens because of the benefits of being undocumented. Well, clearly, there are not many benefits to being undocumented when you work just as hard and are unable to receive benefits, so many are continuously looking for a path to citizenship. 1.4 Million applications for citizenship were received in 2007, and as of January 2008 only half of these had been decided. There were around 12 million undocumented immigrants in 2007 and as of 2015 there are less than 11 million , despite increased levels of immigration in general. As for taxes, almost all undocumented immigrants pay taxes even though they can’t receive welfare benefits.
There are many more myths to dispel, but I will save those for a later date. These facts only scratch the surface of the information that goes into making these policies. Everyone likes to make an issue seem simple when in fact it is usually much more complicated than something that can be explained in a sentence or two. In fact, even after having the idea for this article I didn’t know a lot of the information I found. The takeaway from this is, even though of course this has a liberal leaning (although there’s no bias because it’s completely based on facts!) No matter what you believe, do your research before you decide if your beliefs are based on fact or false facts. Well-intended opinions based on false information lead to very dangerous things, including but not limited to an orange president who spends most of his valuable time whining like a child on social media.
