Of course, "only the Democrats"....it doesn't sound like you get your numbers from an impartial source. I get mine from studying the backrounds of the Fortune 500 crowd, current banking dynasties and the wealthiest heads-of-state and high-level government officials Maybe my info isn't 100% accurate, but what's clear as day is that there are more millionaire/billionaire heirs and heiresses than there ever were, and there is more money than ever sitting idle in offshore accounts or tied up in equity and speculation, which does nothing for the betterment of society or the economy. And this isn't even counting the black-market economy,, which is almost as large as the legitimate one- for all we know, it may be larger still!

...that last line pretty much sums up our entire socio-economic order; a non-productive banker/ownership/ruling class, 2/3rds of whom inherited their wealth and power, taking from the productive majority. Yes, the "porkulus" was a waste, because too much of it went to making sure that this arrangement was maintained. Several years later, we're generally back to business-as-usual, as the non-productive minority gain more wealth and power, and the productive majority gain less. I know that this is not what you were talking about, but this is closer to reality than the notion that government programs for the poor and/or unemployed is the cause of our fiscal problems. I agree with you that some of these half-baked programs exacerbate the problem of poverty, and money gets wasted. But this is a structural and administrative issue more than anything else. How about we start talking about root-causes, like lack of jobs and oppurtunity, stagnant wages, and how party-politics and favoritism seem more important than the General Welfare? Or the fact that our whole system thrives on a delusional,self-destructive cycle of endless waste and consumption? It's past time we all looked deeper into things. The partisan blame-game crap is getting old.