We  have all been assailed with the cries of "class warfare". Daily we hear  how Republicans are out to protect the rich and the Democrats are out  to protect the poor and middle class.

But what is the truth?

Who gets most of the monetary benefits from Congress?

Do the rich win out or does the money and benefits flow mainly to the poor and middle class?

According  to an op-ed piece in the Orange County Register by syndicated columnist  Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post, the rich and their  lobbyists may win some breaks, loopholes and privileges, but the vast  majority of spending keeps greasing the poor and middle class.

Recently,  Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank,  testified before the House Budget Committee on the growth of the  10-largest "means tested" federal programs that serve people who qualify  by various definitions of poverty. Here's what Haskins reported: From  1980 to 2011, annual spending on these programs grew from $126 billion  to $626 billion (all figures in inflation-adjusted "2011 dollars");  dividing this by the number of people below the government poverty line,  spending went from $4,300 per poor person in 1980 to $13,000 in 2011.  In 1962, spending per person in poverty was $516.

Haskins' list  includes Medicaid, food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition  Assistance Program, or SNAP), the earned-income tax credit (a wage  subsidy for some low-income workers), and Pell Grants. There are other,  smaller programs dedicated to the poor. A report from the Congressional  Research Service estimated the total number at 83; Haskins puts the  additional spending on programs below the 10 largest at about $210  billion. The total of all programs for the poor exceeds $800 billion.

To  be sure, some spending reflects the effects of the Great Recession. But  most doesn't. As Haskins shows, spending on the poor has increased  steadily for decades. Consider food stamps. There are now about 45  million Americans receiving an average of $287 a month in food stamps,  up from 26 million in 2007, according to a new Congressional Budget  Office report. But the number in 2007, when the economy was healthy, was  roughly 50 percent higher than in 2001.

And programs for the  poor pale beside middle-class transfers. The giants here are Social  Security at $725 billion in 2011 and Medicare at $560 billion. Combine  all this spending -- programs for the poor, Social Security and Medicare  -- and the total is nearly $2.1 trillion. That was about 60 percent of  2011 non-interest federal spending of $3.4 trillion.

You can  debate whether all this spending is too much or too little. My point is  different: These numbers speak volumes about our politics.

One  lesson is that Washington really hasn't been taken over by moneyed  groups. In a democracy, even the rich are entitled to promote their  interests. It's true that their lobbyists and lawyers sometimes win  lucrative tax breaks, subsidies or regulatory preferences. But as the  spending numbers show, their influence is exaggerated, especially  considering their tax burden. The richest fifth of Americans pay nearly  70 percent of federal taxes (included in this group, the richest 10  percent pay 55 percent), estimates the CBO.

The larger lesson is  that, contrary to conventional wisdom, American politics have not become  insensitive to the "the people." In many ways, just the opposite is  true. Politicians are too responsive to popular will. The real  Washington is in the business of pleasing as many people as possible for  as long as possible. There are now vast constituencies dependent on the  largesse of the federal government. This is the main cause of huge  "structural" budget deficits, meaning that they aren't simply a hangover  from the Great Recession.

http://ocregister.com/opinion/spending-351626-washington-programs.html

Is there then in fact a war on the poor and middle class?

Have the lobbyists for the rich taken captive both Republican and Democratic lawmakers?

Are the poor and middle class worse off because of Congress than they have been in the past?

From the Cornfield, this information gives us a reason to think.

Are Americans becoming too dependent on the largesse of the federal government?