I think I get what you're driving at, but to me, the extent to which that statement is true depends greatly on what the "stealing" looks like, and who's doing the looking. Conservatives generally concern themselves with people who steal from the expense side of the ledger by abusing government programs, whereas liberals generally have a bigger problem with those who don't pay their fair share into the system, whether that's through tax fraud or judicious use of legal loopholes in the tax code. Of course, a dollar of lost revenue and a dollar of wasted spending are both the same in economic terms, so the idea that one or the other is a greater sin is purely based on political prejudice.

It's also important to note that in both cases, there are gray areas around whether the fraud actually violates the letter of the law, or just the spirit and intended purpose of the law. Your example couple, at least from the information you've put forth, is probably not among the most needy families to be drawing food and/or income assistance, but I have little doubt they qualify under the letter of the law for those programs. Compare their actions to the thousands of businesses and millions of individuals who do everything they can to minimize their tax burden using legal loopholes. Nobody wants to pay more in taxes than they are legally obligated to, so why wouldn't someone who qualifies for assistance take it provided they meet legal eligibility requirements?



That really depends on the individual program. Clinton's 1996 welfare reform imposed strict restrictions on welfare (TANF, formerly AFDC) benefits, including a hard 60 month cap on lifetime benefits and strictly-enforced work requirements for recipients. These led to the number of AFDC/TANF recipients shrinking from ~12 million in 1996 to ~4 million in 2007.

Other programs like SNAP (food stamps) impose fewer restrictions, but I don't think the average SNAP recipient's monthly income of $640 or average monthly food stamp benefit per household of $227 would be considered living high on the hog.


Your anecdotes don't change the fact that the average benefit per recipient of these programs is very small, and the total expenditures is just a drop in the bucket. The total size of the SNAP food stamp program is around $30 billion a year. Last year, we lost twice that in tax revenues to companies who shifted income around to avoid taxation, $3.1 billion that just from Google. When you consider that there are many other forms of legal tax evasion other than income shifting, you realize that the amount of legalized fraud on the income side of the ledger likely matches or exceeds that of those who are abusing government programs. Yet I don't see conservatives/tea partiers campaigning for stricter enforcement of our tax code to make sure companies pay their fair share.



Well, most of the provisions of "Obamacare" have not yet taken effect, but we're already seeing benefits from the few that have. For instance, more small businesses are offering health insurance this year due to a tax credit in the healthcare law. Furthermore, at a time when 20-somethings are having trouble finding jobs, kids up to age 27 can now remain on their parents policies instead of having to go to an emergency room where you and I would pay much more for their care. And it's not like there's any single payer system or public option, so I'm not sure what exactly you're worried about here.