MSNBC - 10 Partisan Myths

I found this article interesting, especially this part-

1. Because federal benefits go to the poor, reform will amount to a shedding of our social safety net.
We should never forget the critical role that federal benefits have played—and continue to play—in protecting Americans against the hardships of poverty. "I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished," announced President Roosevelt in 1937. Most of the benefits originally paid out through his New Deal programs were directly targeted at alleviating this misery.

However, this is no longer the purpose toward which most benefits are directed. In 2002, out of $1.2 trillion in federal, state and local benefits, the poor received roughly $140 billion, according to the Census Bureau. That's about 12 cents of every full benefit dollar.

But yet the myth of the "welfare Cadillac" lives on, and that I can blame on the politics of division currently practiced by the Republican Party. It's the poor, the gays, the terrorists, on and on and on, whipping up a hysteria of fear to further their agenda, hiding the fact that they have no answers for the problem, or continue with their policy of greed, I'm not sure which. The sad thing is, people agree with it and/or fall for it.