GALVANIZED: ROMNEY, RYAN DRAW MASSIVE CROWD IN NC

The announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate is clearly galvanizing voters across the country; people are turning out in droves to see the new Republican ticket in person. Tweets from those attending the rallies today testify to the excitement:

@datakcy: At Romney/Ryan rally in NC: overflow crowd. Arena full. Cars backed up for miles!

@GayPatriot: All these people back into the trees are listening to ‪@PaulRyanVP on outside speakers. Wow.

@SarahPompei: You'd think a boy band walked into thousands of teenage girls. Nope.

Attendees tweeted pictures from the rally, which had enormous lines backed up around the block:

Via: Breitbart

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Agriculture Department Paid $2 Million for a Single Intern

A report from the Agriculture Department’s Inspector General has revealed some stunning examples of financial waste in the Department’s nascent technology security efforts, which have mismanaged about $63 million in taxpayer funding.

Among the IG’s findings: the USDA spent more than $2 million on an internship program that only hired one full-time intern, $3 million on technology hardware that was never used, and $235,000 on a project that was later canceled due to redundancy.

The office of USDA’s chief information officer, which was the subject of the report, “had not established internal control procedures, such as monitoring and oversight, for project management, and did not adequately plan its projects or how it would utilize resources,” the IG noted in explaining the underlying causes of financial mismanagement.

“With proper coordination within OCIO and improved communication between project managers, these unnecessary costs could have been avoided,” the IG explained. But because USDA has so far failed to address those underlying issues, “the Department is still at significant risk” for further financial losses.

Some highlights from the report:

• “OCIO [Office of the CIO] funded an intern program for a total of $2 million which, while funded as a security enhancement project, only resulted in one intern being hired full-time for ASOC [the Agriculture Security Operations Center]… This project is intended to develop and sustain a highly skilled IT security and computer technology workforce.  Expenditures for FY 2010 and 2011 included over $686,000 for development and implementation of a networking website and approximately $192,500 in housing costs for two summers.  While the intern program may be a beneficial step in the long-run, it did little to further the more pressing objective of improving USDA’s IT security.”
• “In FYs 2010 and 2011, OCIO spent at least $1.8 million to acquire four tools for the security sensor array project—which are not currently used—and subsequently spent additional annual maintenance costs of approximately $1.2 million.  In addition, OCIO determined that one of these tools, costing approximately $425,000, could not handle the amount of data that USDA’s network generates.  OCIO has maintained this tool at a cost of approximately $81,000 annually but has not been able to utilize it.”
• “In FY 2010, OCIO spent $235,000 to research possible solutions for a project intended to prevent data leakage outside of USDA networks. The project was subsequently cancelled because its goals were redundant with another ongoing project, the security sensor array.”

Via: The Foundry

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George W. Bush: 'This Is a Strong Pick'

The Romney campaign passes along George W. Bush's reaction to the announcement that Paul Ryan will be Mitt Romney's running mate: 

"This is a strong pick. Governor Romney is serious about confronting the long-term challenges facing America, and Paul Ryan will help him solve the difficult issues that must be addressed for future generations."

Here's Chris Christie's statement:

"With Paul Ryan on the ticket this is a team that understands the economic stagnation our country has been facing the last four years and the urgency with which we need to change course. The Romney-Ryan team is uniquely positioned to make the tough choices necessary to confront our fiscal challenges and get results."

And here's Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's statement:

"Paul is a good friend and one of the smartest guys I served with in Congress. He has the courage of his convictions, which is what our nation needs."

Via: The Weekly Standard

Rep. Ryan built 'clear-minded' reputation as policy point-person, despite 'extreme' label

From underpaid Capitol Hill staffer to vice presidential nominee in two decades. 

By Washington standards, that ain't bad. 

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's rise had been turning heads long before he was announced Saturday as Mitt Romney's running mate. His biography and evolution as a conservative standard-bearer now enter Republican Party history. 

Far from the "extreme" ideologue that Democrats try to portray him as, though, the 42-year-old lawmaker has charted a career marked by an approach members of both parties described, in less partisan times, as "serious." Though not afraid to fight on the stump, Ryan's studious and reserved brand of policymaking is one that almost seems anachronistic in an era marked by pin-drop fights over everything but issues. 

"The beauty about the guy is he really is who he's advertised as," Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who was Ryan's boss in the 1990s during his Senate days, told Fox News. 

Ryan's story started in Janesville, Wis., and never really left. He was born in the southern Wisconsin city in 1970 and has lived there ever since. 

Romney cited those roots in introducing his choice Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va. "Paul is a man of tremendous character shaped in large part by his early life," Romney said. 

The congressman's father died of a heart attack when the young Paul was still in high school. Paul once recalled in an interview with The New Yorker how he found his father dead in his bed. 

Via: Fox News

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PALIN CONGRATULATES ROMNEY ON RYAN SELECTION, SAYS OBAMA TURNING US INTO CA

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who galvanized conservatives when she was selected as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, congratulated Mitt Romney on selecting a running mate in Paul Ryan who has similarly energized conservatives. 

“Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate,” Palin wrote in a Facebook note. “President Obama has declared that this election is about 'two fundamentally different visions' for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision."

Palin made an important point about how the fiscal path the country is on will turn the country into California, which has seen some of its biggest municipalities declare bankruptcy. What happens in California, it is often said, is a harbinger of things to come across the nation. In many respects, California has often been out in front of the nation by a decade on many non-economic issues as well, such as on immigration and affirmative action. 

Palin said when she thinks “about the direction our country is rapidly drifting in,” she cannot “help but look at California as a cautionary tale”

Via Breitbart

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Obamacare 'Glitch' Screws Middle Class

Ambiguity in Health Law Could Make Family Coverage Too Costly for Many

The new health care law is known as theAffordable Care Act. But Democrats in Congress and advocates for low-income people say coverage may be unaffordable for millions of Americans because of a cramped reading of the law by the administration and by the Internal Revenue Service in particular.

Under rules proposed by the service, some working-class families would be unable to afford family coverage offered by their employers, and yet they would not qualify for subsidies provided by the law.

The fight revolves around how to define “affordable” under provisions of the law that are ambiguous. The definition could have huge practical consequences, affecting who gets help from the government in buying health insurance.

Under the law, most Americans will be required to have health insurance starting in 2014. Low- and middle-income people can get tax credits and other subsidies to help pay their premiums, unless they have access to affordable coverage from an employer.

Via: New York Times

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Obama Signs Bill Which Exempts Presidential Appointees From Congressional Confirmation

President Barack Obama signed a bill Friday evening that would exempt some senior-level presidential appointees from Senate confirmation.

Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and cosponsored by Republicans and Democrats, the bill, now law, weakens the power of the legislature and strengthens the executive branch, critics have warned. The bill skated through the Senate three months after being introduced in 2011 and was passed by the Republican-controlled House 261-116 in July.

The law now allows Obama and future presidents to name appointees to senior positions in every branch of the administration, from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Homeland Security.

Conservative critics worried that the bill restricts congressional authority to monitor executive branch decisions, but the measure received bipartisan support because of the gridlocked, slow-moving Senate, which is known for being the more deliberative of the two bodies of Congress.

Whereas the House is a more populist body, the Senate grants more power to its fewer members. It only takes one senator to filibuster an appointee, forcing the majority party to find a “super majority” of 60 votes to end the filibuster and move ahead with an up-or-down vote.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Author: ‘Obama Would Have Trouble Getting A Security Clearance For An Entry-Level Government Job’

Author Paul Kengor wants you to know just how radical Frank Marshal Davis — a man many consider to have been a mentor to President Barack Obama during his teenage years — was.

“Obama’s mentor was considered so radical, and such a potential pro-Soviet threat, that the federal government placed him on the Security Index,” Kengor told The Daily Caller in an interview about his new book on Davis, simply titled “The Communist.”

“That meant that if a war broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union, Frank Marshall Davis could be placed under immediate arrest. Think about that. Obama had that sort of influence. And The Washington Post will focus on whether Mitt Romney was bullying in high school? With the kind of influence that Obama had, Obama would have trouble getting a security clearance for an entry-level government job.”

Obama refers to Davis in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” simply as “Frank” and never elaborates on his radical history. Kengor believes this is because Obama wanted to avoid the political liability of being associated with Davis’ politics. But if Obama was concerned about protecting his future political prospects while writing his memoir, why would he include details of his drug use?

Via: The Daily Caller

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Mark Steyn: Obama the great disabler

By MARK STEYN

Syndicated columnist

The other day, I passed a Republican Party county office here in my home state, its window attractively emblazoned with placards declaring "Believe in America. Romney 2012" and "New Hampshire Believes. Romney 2012." There's not a lot of evidence for the latter proposition, but I'm certainly willing to believe that Romney believes that New Hampshire believes. An hour or two later, I chanced to be passing a television set just as the station went to break. The words "WE BELIEVE" appeared on the screen, followed by youthful hands raised to a clear blue sky at the dawn of a new day, shafts of sunlight gleaming through ears of corn, a puppy gamboling across a meadow, a kitten playfully pawing, happy green t-shirted volunteers of many races unloading a recycling carton ... and I thought, despite myself, "Well, say what you like, but the reassuring vapidity of the Romney campaign is at least getting more professional." At the end, in the spot where the off-screen voice is supposed to say "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message," it instead said: "Introducing Purina One Beyond: a new food for your cat or dog."

Well, what do I know? By contrast, the Obama campaign's theme is "Forward" – which, in the context of a second term for Mister You-Didn't-Build-That, I'd carelessly assumed was a poignant allusion to "The Charge of the Light Brigade":

President Barack Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney

Via: OC Register

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"'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred."

But apparently the focus groups are oblivious to Lord Tennyson, and "Forward" is seen as sunny and optimistic rather than a deranged lemming-like march into the abyss. In that sense, "Forward" is unusually honest for the Democrats, at least compared with their recent assertions that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in 10 years and personally gives women terminal cancer. "Forward" means "Even more of the same": You can't say he isn't warning us.

Debt Up $6.35T Since Ryan Predicted--in 2008-U.S. Was Headed Toward Bankruptcy

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 11, 2012, where Romney announced Ryan as his running mate. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has picked as his running mate, told CNSNews.com four years ago, in August 2008, that the U.S. was heading toward bankruptcy on the fiscal path it was then following and that it would be “mindboggling” to make the problem worse by adding the sort of health-care plan that then-Sen. Barack Obama was advocating in his presidential campaign.

CNSNews.com asked Ryan: “If our country, if the federal government of the United States, stays on the fiscal path it is currently following, is the government going to go bankrupt down the road?"

“Yes. We know that for a fact,” said Ryan. “All the actuaries, all the objective score-keepers of the federal government are predicting this. So, this much we know. What we know is our government is growing at an unsustainable pace and it will overwhelm our economy’s ability to pay the bills.”

Since CNSNews.com first published Ryan making this prediction on Aug. 4, 2008, the debt of the federal government has grown by $6.35 trillion--rising 66 percent, from $9,565,042,361,845.53 then to $15,915,814,457,919.46 now.

Via: CNSNews:

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MSM: Ryan does not have "Private-Sector Experience to be VP"

THE SPIN BEGINS -

The Drudge Report singled out political writer Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker as having the unintentionally hilarious first spin on the reported pick of Paul Ryan to be Romney's running mate. Lizza immediately started to "tally the risks."

"For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience," he wrote. He wrote this with zero ackowledgment of Obama's private-sector experience scooping mint-chip at Baskin-Robbins. If the rest of the media follows this line, this is going to be shamelessly biased:

Besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer, Ryan has none of the business-world experience Romney frequently touts as essential for governing. In the run-up to his first campaign for Congress, in 1998, that gap was enough of a concern for Ryan that he briefly became a “marketing consultant” at the family business, an obvious bit of résumé puffing.

But that wasn't blind, deaf, and dumb to Obama's resume enough: he also didn't have enough Washington experience:

But Ryan’s Washington experience is also light, at least for a potential President—which, after all, is the main job description of a Vice-President. Ryan has worked as a think-tank staffer and Congressman, but he’s never been in charge of a large organization, and he has little experience with foreign policy. Given how Sarah Palin was criticized for her lack of such experience, I’m surprised that Romney would pick someone whose ability to immediately step into the top job is open to question.

Via: Newsbusters:

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The Romney-Ryan Ticket: 'We Won’t Duck the Tough Issues ... We Will Lead!'

Mitt Romney announced Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate Saturday, selecting the Republican Party's go-to man on budget issues in a decision that signals the campaign will make the nation's spiraling debt a centerpiece of its attacks on President Obama.

Romney made the selection official during a campaign stop Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va., before launching a four-day bus tour.  

The Republican presidential candidate called his new running mate a man of "steadiness" and "integrity." Speaking Saturday morning, Romney praised Ryan as an "intellectual leader" of the party, one who understands the toll the debt is taking on the country but is optimistic about the future.

"He doesn't demonize his opponents. He understands that honorable people can have honest differences and he appeals to the better angels of our nature," Romney said. "He's never been content to just curse the darkness. He'd rather light candles."

To the backdrop of retired battleship USS Wisconsin, an energized Ryan then riled up the crowd with a feisty speech that promoted Romney as the solution to the problems under President Obama. Ryan, met with chants of "USA, USA," gave a sweeping vision speech on free enterprise, one laced with attacks on the White House incumbent.

"No one disputes that President Obama inherited a difficult situation. And, in his first two years, with his party in complete control of Washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda. But that didn't make things better," Ryan said. "In fact, we find ourselves in a nation facing debt, doubt and despair. ...

Via Fox Nation

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'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Tomorrow will mark a milestone: It will be 1,200 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget, during which time Congress amassed $4.8 trillion in new debt.

Later today, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart, detailing these startling numbers:

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is  based on Treasury Department figures.

In a joint statement, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan mark the milestone.

“Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat conference will have gone an unprecedented 1,200 days without adopting a budget plan as required by law," write Sessions and Ryan. "Not only have they failed to adopt a budget, but with America under threat of financial calamity, they have refused to even present a plan for public scrutiny. Last year, Majority Leader Reid said it would be ‘foolish’ to do a budget and the legally required Budget Committee mark-up was cancelled. No plan from his conference has seen the light of day. He refuses to disclose who he plans to tax and how he plans to spend taxpayers’ money."

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Great news: The US fiscal gap just jumped $11 trillion … to $222 trillion

Forget the trillion-dollar deficits for a moment.  Forget today’s $15 trillion in national debt.  The real fiscal disaster isn’t our present — it’s our future, and it just got significantly worse.  Bloomberg economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns report that our “fiscal gap,” the measure of future liabilities to future revenue, grew by the same amount as our present public debt to reach $222 trillion.  That’s trillionwith a T:

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade.

In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap — the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness – rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones. …

The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast — the Alternative Fiscal Scenario — is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference — this year’s true federal deficit — is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.

Via: HotAir

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Labor chief Trumka vows stronger ground game for elections

The nation’s largest labor federation says it is ready to unleash a new and improved political program ahead of the November elections with expanded outreach and more volunteers than past years.

AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka on Thursday outlined a strategy that will emphasis grass-roots efforts over TV ads, vowing that at least 400,000 volunteers — 100,000 more than during the 2008 election season — will hit the streets nationwide this autumn.

“You won’t see us doing all the ads, all the anonymous ads,” he said during a briefing with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “We turn out people at the grass-roots level, something [anti-union groups and candidates] can’t do. And this time we’re going to try to do it even better.”

“That’s where we’re going to shine this time.”

New laws allow labor activists to have more contact with voters in non-union households — a demographic Mr. Trumka vows not to ignore.

“It used to be that we would do a door-knock, and there’d be 500 houses in a small community, and if 100 were union, we had to skip 400 houses. Now we’re going to be able to go to those 400 houses, talk to them about the issues,” he said.

Via: The Washington Times

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Arrested illegals who were released charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes

President Barack Obama‘s decision not to deport some arrested illegal immigrants has enabled a crime wave — but no American or immigrant victims have been publicly identified, and GOP politicians have mostly remained mute.

Illegal aliens who have been released from custody between 2008 and mid-2011 have been charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes, including 19 murders, 142 sex crimes and thousands of drunk-driving offenses, drug-crimes and felonies, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

“Rather than protect the American people he was elected to serve, President Obama has imposed a policy that allows thousands of illegal immigrants to be released into our communities,” said a statement from Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.

The criminals “were in the government’s custody, were identified as illegal immigrants and then let go because this administration has refused to request the resources to hold them and deport them,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Via: Daily Caller

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Rep. Steve King considering bill to repeal everything Obama has signed

If Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has his way, everything President Obama has signed into law would be repealed, and he is considering a bill to do just that, The Hill reported Wednesday.

"King put forward this suggestion to an Iowa audience on Tuesday, when he also reiterated his threat to sue the Obama administration for its June decision not to deport younger illegal immigrants," Pete Kasperowicz wrote.

He also told a group of about 60 people in Humboldt County that he intends to sue the administration over an executive orderstopping the deportation of certain illegal immigrants.

''I am bringing him to court and we're going to defend the Constitution of the United States and the separation of powers,'' he said.

According to the Messenger, King's lawsuit may be filed before Labor Day.

"He said Tuesday that he decided to sue the president the day the executive order was announced," the Messenger reported.

King said that President Obama violated the Constitution by usurping Congress' role in the lawmaking process.

''He has prosecutorial discretion, but he does not have the ability to grant blanket amnesty to entire classes of people," he added.

While King's proposal would certainly undo Obamacare, Think Progress said it would also end the Bush-era tax cuts that Obama extended in 2010, defund the military, strip Medals of Honor from 9/11 first responders and cancel plans to honor President Ronald Reagan.

Via: Examiner

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Gingrich slams Obama on welfare revamp

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused President Barack Obama and his “even more radical” appointees on Wednesday of plotting to destroy the work requirement in the 1996 welfare reform law.

Obama and his aides “have a real fight and it is a fight they can’t possibly win,” he said.

“This happens to be an issue that is devastating for liberals… [many voters are] really offended by government giving away money for nothing,” Gingrich said during a press conference arranged by the Republican National Committee.

Obama’s deputies are pushing back against Mitt Romney’s new focus on the July decision by the department of Health and Human Services to relax welfare-to-work rules.

Romney said Tuesday the change is an “insult” to hard-working Americans.

In July, HHS invited states to conduct “demonstration projects” that could exempt welfare recipients from long-standing work requirements.

Obama’s aides say the new proposal won’t reduce the popular requirement that welfare recipients also work, and they argue that officials will only approve projects that actually boost work rates by 20 percent.

Via: The Daily Caller

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IRS told employees to ignore potential fraud in program used by immigrants

IRS supervisors ignored employees who tried to warn agency higher-ups of fraud in a program designed to collect taxes from immigrants, resulting in the agency paying out potentially bogus refunds.

The Treasury inspector general for tax administration said the IRS even eliminated some methods employees had used to figure out questionable refund requests, and that the agency doesn’t have the ability to verify applicants’ identity or foreign status.

Investigators “found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications,” said J. Russell George, the inspector general.

The IRS pays out $6.8 billion in refunds to taxpayers who file using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), who are generally immigrants, here both legally and illegally. The amount of fraud was not stated.

The agency said it has put new checks in place to try to crack down on fraud, with employees getting training from the Homeland Security Department on how to verify documents when an immigrant applies for an ITIN.

Via: The Washington Times

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Over 100 Million Americans on Federal Welfare

A new chart set to be released later today by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee details a startling statistic: "Over 100 Million People in U.S. Now Receiving Some Form Of Federal Welfare."

"The federal government administers nearly 80 different overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs," the Senate Budget Committee notes. However, the committee states, the figures used in the chart do not include those who are only benefiting from Social Security and/or Medicare. 

Food stamps and Medicaid make up a large--and growing--chunk of the more than 100 million recipients. "Among the major means tested welfare programs, since 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011," says the Senate Budget Committee. "Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach $800 billion over the next decade."

The data come "from the U.S. Census’s Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that nearly 110,000 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011. (These figures do not include other means-tested benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premium subsidies included in the President’s health care law. CBO estimates that the premium subsidies, scheduled to begin in 2014, will cover at least 25 million individuals by the end of the decade.)"

This is not just Americans, however. "These figures include not only citizens, but non-citizens as well," according to the committee.

Via: The Weekly Standard