Shannon Stapleton/AP Photo
T-Paw giving a speech last month in front of a giant picture of Mitt Romney's face.
Tim Pawlenty, The Last Word's favorite mild-mannered man from Minnesota, officially ditched his position as co-chair of the Romney campaign Thursday to become a Wall Street lobbyist.
With just 47 days to go until the presidential election, the former Minnesota governor announced his decision to head up the Financial Services Roundtable in a joint statement with the Romney campaign.
T-Paw said he had to leave because his new job "does not allow me to participate in partisan campaign activities." He continued, "My work with Mitt has been a privilege. Mitt Romney is a truly good man and great leader. As the campaign moves into the home stretch, he has my full support and continued faith in his vision and his policies."
Former rival Romney referred to T-Paw as a "dear friend" in the press release. "He's brought energy, intelligence and tireless dedication to every enterprise in which he's ever been engaged, and that certainly includes my presidential campaign," Romney said in the written statement. "While I regret he cannot continue as co-chair of my campaign, his new position advancing the integrity of our financial system is vital to the future of our country. I congratulate him on his new position and wish him every success in carrying out his new mission."
Pawlenty became the first Republican candidate to drop out of the 2012 presidential race. And before Paul Ryan came along, he told
The Last Word he wouldn't even consider a VP slot.
It was the widely held belief on The Last Word that T-Paw would ultimately bag the nomination, not Willard M. Romney. Despite his ill-conceived "Google tests" and cheesy attempts to appear "hip" by name-dropping Lady Gaga songs, he was just the nice guy who told dagger jokes on TV.
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I want my freebies.....
Welfare State Grows by Nearly 19% Under Obama – to Almost $1 Trillion a Year
By Elizabeth Harrington
August 9, 2012
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U.S. Department of Agriculture SNAP program (food stamp) card. (AP photo)
(CNSNews.com) – Federal and state welfare assistance has grown almost 19 percent under President Barack Obama, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
All in all, there are 79 means-tested federal welfare programs, at a cost approaching $1 trillion annually, said Heritage Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector.
Rector conducted a comprehensive analysis of spending for government assistance programs, ranging from food, education and childcare programs to housing and medical care.
Since Fiscal Year 2009, federal and state welfare spending has risen from $779.9 billion to $927.2 billion, an increase of 18.8 percent. That fiscal year includes spending from Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009.
In his report, Rector said the increase in federal means-tested welfare spending during Obama's first two years in office was two-and-a-half times greater than any previous increase in federal welfare spending in U.S. history, after adjusting for inflation.
Rachel Sheffield, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation's DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, told CNSNews.com that this kind of pay out can not be maintained.
"It's a huge amount of money we're spending on these programs and our debt is growing," she said. "It's not sustainable."
According to the report, titled "Examining the Means-tested Welfare State," in FY 2011 the federal government dolled out $717.1 billion on welfare programs, while states spent $210.1 billion.
The 79 federal programs include:
-- 12 programs providing food aid;
-- 12 programs funding social services;
-- 12 educational assistance programs;
-- 11 housing assistance programs;
-- 10 programs providing cash assistance;
-- 9 vocational training programs;
-- 7 medical assistance programs;
-- 3 energy and utility assistance programs; and,
-- 3 child care and child development programs.
Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation. (AP photo)
Since FY 2007, state welfare spending has stayed relatively flat, averaging $190.2 billion per year. Federal spending, however, has increased 53 percent, going from $468.7 billion in 2007 ($717.1 billion) to $717.1 billion in 2011.
In FY 2011 the largest share of total welfare spending went towards medical related programs (49.5 percent), followed by cash assistance (19.6 percent) and food assistance (11.8 percent).
That year nearly half of spending went to families with children at 49.9 percent, followed by disabled adults at 28.1 percent and elderly adults at 14.4 percent.
Since the 1950s when means-tested welfare spending (as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product) was less than 1 percent (0.93), welfare disbursements have ballooned to 6.1 percent of GDP in the 2010s.
Heritage's Sheffield said the fastest growing welfare program is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as the food stamp program. As of May 2012, 46.5 million Americans are participating in SNAP, accordingto the Department of Agriculture, a 2.4 percentage increase from a year ago.
According to Rector, the government has spent $19.8 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars) on means-tested welfare since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty began in the 1960s.
"In comparison," he wrote, "the cost of all military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan has been $6.98 trillion."
"The War on Poverty has cost three times as much as all other wars combined," he said.
The increase in the welfare state shows no signs of slowing down, according to the Heritage report.
President Obama's budget for FY 2013 estimates that total welfare spending will increase to $1.57 trillion by 2022, largely due to new entitlements under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Star Parker, a leading champion for welfare reform in the 1990s, said the size and scope of benefits programs to the poor is "unfathomable" at nearly 80 programs and a cost of $1 trillion annually.
"How in the world will we survive as a country?" asked Parker in a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Friday.
"I mean the demand on the states and the local communities then is it a wonder that they are now going broke themselves, they're having to file bankruptcies trying to keep up with the pensions and the promises that they've made to their underclass?" she said.
"What we've got to do is come up with some new plans," Parker added.
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Heritage Foundation? Those are the guys who claim there's no such thing as human-caused global warming... Before that they were pushing junk science denying the harmful effects of second-hand tobacco smoke...
I don't know about "freebies," but there are a number of us here who would offer you letters of recommend to return to school for some more education in critical thinking and science stuff... You have an obvious deficiency...
Of course, this is Big Government at its best. For every duplication of programs run by separate agencies of the federal government, overhead costs and salaries for the layers of bureaucrats have to be siphoned off from the scarce tax revenues available, using more and more deficit financing to fund the sources. Case in point; the vaunted jobs bill for veterans, that was to be funded by shifting some deficit financing from other programs up and running to this new flashy effort. Amd having been engaged for most of my professional career as a Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist working exclusively with unemployed and partially disabled veterans, I know of the existance of the duplicate programs already in place to provide assistance. As do the veterans who are made fully aware of those programs by federal and state agencies.
But as to Pawlenty, he was not an effective candidate for office. May have been a useful and succesful governor, but his role as co-campaign manager was not a decision making and structural roll, but a titled role as a surrogate to hit the campaign trail and talking heads shows. Now that the campaign is entering its debate phase and the critical month of October, it will be putting the Romney the candidate out front at every opportunity, and not surrogates like Pawlenty while Romney took a breather from his hectic primary season battle to the nomination to prepare for this stage of the campaign. But thanks for you crocidile tears over his departure O'Donnelll, would you like a kleenix?
Tim Pawlenty knows that Romney has no chance of winning. Watch the debate, but remember that when you hear Obama speak, you will hear the truth. The Republican Party missed a great opportunity to win the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representative by not nominating JonHuntsman. Huntsman would have received a more positive reaction from Democrats, Mormons and Independents. I have relatives in Salt Lake City and I am familiar with Huntsman. Regardless of what you may think of Mormons, Huntsman is truly a good Christian. He is intelligent, reasonable, truthful and ethical with a strong will power to do what is best for everyone. I talked with a number of Democrats who would have voted for him. In Huntsman the party had a conservative who comes across as being sincere and empathetic; two qualities that wins votes. Sincerity makes Huntsman’s deeds beautiful, noble and honorable. He was well known as having integrity. I almost feel that it is a tragedy that Huntsman was not nominated because I feel certain this country and the people would benefit from his leadership.
Lawrence,
I always rush home every evening to watch your show because I cannot afford to miss any part of your hourly show. Keep up the good work buddy and while you are at it you can check me out at www.lulu.com/LaughTillUcry
I will love come to your show and talk about congressional benefits from health to retirement while the populace languishes in this republican mess even as we pray.
Call me Herman Yenwo at 630-664-0343 or email hermannherman@yahoo.com www.lulu.com/LaughTillUcry
You'd do better to stop at the local bar and fortify yourself for the onslaught of inconsequential nonsense that O'Donnell keeps throwing out for his viewers as distractions, like this current little piece of nonsense and that tripe about the West Wing reunion of sorts, then lull yourself to sleep watching the 12:00PM rerun, Herman.
T-Paw's support--you can bank on it!!
Lawrence,
Thanks you for everything.
Love you. Love the show.
Keep it up.
Hey Lawrence, I watch MSNBC starting with Alex to your show. I am retired and look forward to hearing the TRUTH about this race to the W.H. All of the people i told about your network tune in also. Keep up the excellent work and telling it like it is. I wish you were on on friday night to make my week-end complete. I watch Melissa also and that gets me through the week-end. Love, love you and God Bless.
Alex Wagner is sure good to look at, but I would suggest that you mix it up a little in your viewing, Tinah K. Between 3:00PM and 5:00PM EDT hours try CNBC's business and market coverage, and then balance Chris Mathews at 5:00PM with Fox News at 6:00PM EDT hour, instead of the really worthless idealogue rantings of Rev Al Sharpto. Look into CNN's Erin Burnnet's show at the 7:00 EDT hour instead of the rerun of Mathews, and try switching back and forth from Sgt Shultz's inane 8:00PM hour to global sweep of interest of one Anderson Cooper on CNN I'll give you Maddow at 9:00PM EDT, but switch it up a bit between Little Lying Larry O'Donnell's show at 10:00OM EDT to Fox's Greta VanSusten to obtain a modicum of balance. You will be a lot better for following a bit of diversity rather than taking in sameo sameo all day long of one network's editorial policy which all their talking heads march in unison too, you know? Then of course, if it is not too past your bedtime hour, do take in for a little needed comic relief The Daily Show with John Stewart on the Comedy Channel.
It is interesting, that of the three big cable news and commentry networks, MSNBC is at the bottom in ratings. 80% of the nation's viewers that prefer Fox and CNN can't be so very wrong, can they?