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I was thinking of how many liberals feel outraged when they see the poor, thinking of the injustice of being so destitute in a society as wealthy as the United States. Many of these poor have some type of government assistance, but they are still poor. Many conservatives look at these same poor and think they should clean up their act, work on their education and job skills, and start working their way up the ladder, like many of those conservatives, and liberals, have done themselves.
While I know that income disparity in the United States is almost unique in westernized democracies, I also read we live in a time where the poor are often the most obese among us, and that was certainly not the case 100 years ago. The poor were lining up for free soup, and didn't have anyone sending them a check or help with their rent.
Now the rich and corporations in America are going to pay even less taxes, instead of 37%, only a paltry 21%, and keep even more of their wealth, and the poor will continue to scrape by. Would conservatives prefer a "meritocracy", where one is purely responsible for their own financial condition, with no help from the government? If that were the case, crime would likely skyrocket. Would it not be better to go the other way, to have a Universal Basic Income (UBI), where everyone was paid a small stipend? The economics of such a transition could surely be accomplished. If you are wealthy and are paying less in taxes, you don't qualify. In fact, if you make a certain amount of money, you simply wouldn't qualify. Is that something that conservatives could get behind?
Perhaps those tax savings could help offset the costs of UBI, in addition to other areas from which to cut costs to fund UBI. Even welfare could be looked at for the chopping block.
So, you should be paid to sit around on your tuchus and do nothing? No, I'm not for that.
People who are disabled either mentally or physically we should and have a responsibility to take care of, everyone else can get a job. I understand life happens and you might need a hand up every once in a while, and I'm all for that, but welfare (which is what a UBI is) should not be a way of life.
Even if everyone got a "small stipend" (how much would that be?) crime would still skyrocket. People will always want more, whether it's a flashy car or extra bling. And most of the problem with the people trapped in their cycle of poverty, is because they are unable to save towards long term goals, and instead they would rather lease an Escalade, wear fake gold jewelry, pay for expensive hair weaves and wear fake nails so big that it's impossible to do any sort of work in them... basically they have a need to look like they are living large like the celebrities who they admire so highly. And they have no desire to achieve a boring middle class lifestyle, they only want a flashy and exciting lifestyle.
I was thinking of how many liberals feel outraged when they see the poor, thinking of the injustice of being so destitute in a society as wealthy as the United States. Many of these poor have some type of government assistance, but they are still poor. Many conservatives look at these same poor and think they should clean up their act, work on their education and job skills, and start working their way up the ladder, like many of those conservatives, and liberals, have done themselves.
While I know that income disparity in the United States is almost unique in westernized democracies, I also read we live in a time where the poor are often the most obese among us, and that was certainly not the case 100 years ago. The poor were lining up for free soup, and didn't have anyone sending them a check or help with their rent.
Now the rich and corporations in America are going to pay even less taxes, instead of 37%, only a paltry 21%, and keep even more of their wealth, and the poor will continue to scrape by. Would conservatives prefer a "meritocracy", where one is purely responsible for their own financial condition, with no help from the government? If that were the case, crime would likely skyrocket. Would it not be better to go the other way, to have a Universal Basic Income (UBI), where everyone was paid a small stipend? The economics of such a transition could surely be accomplished. If you are wealthy and are paying less in taxes, you don't qualify. In fact, if you make a certain amount of money, you simply wouldn't qualify. Is that something that conservatives could get behind?
Perhaps those tax savings could help offset the costs of UBI, in addition to other areas from which to cut costs to fund UBI. Even welfare could be looked at for the chopping block.
Today, only 23% of poor families receive assistance.
<snip> We must redesign this entire system. In the most prosperous nation in the world, it is ludicrous that children are growing up in the kind of deprivation we normally associate with developing countries. Simultaneously, we must ensure that no one is discouraged from growing their income or assets. One potential solution is a universal basic income, which would provide an annual benefit to every citizen. However, this idea comes with a hefty price tag and would either increase our national deficit or increase the marginal tax rate, both of which might be political non-starters. The simpler solution is a Negative Income Tax (NIT) which is potentially cheaper than our current poverty alleviation efforts. An NIT is a refundable tax credit which brings every household to the federal poverty level. The most effective way to do this is to decrease the credit slowly (for example, a $0.50 reduction for each $1.00 increase in earned income) so that there is never a penalty for hard work. (my bold)
The class war is currently dead at the moment, if not suspended in hiatus. Right now this country is in full culture war. The left had abandoned the class war due to Donald Trump winning the presidential election.
I like what she has to say, about the NIT and how empirical and statistical evidence bear out how welfare penalizes people for a rise in income, thereby dissuading these same people to get off of welfare, and how states with strict guidelines usually see the least number get off welfare and find work. Furthermore, we can take the failing plan of our current poverty programs and the same funding could used for these reoccurring failures could be shifted towards eliminating, or at least reducing, poverty in America. This is also a much easier sell, a UBI would likely be dead on arrival, but the NIT could really change things, and do it quickly.
Today, only 23% of poor families receive assistance.
<snip> We must redesign this entire system. In the most prosperous nation in the world, it is ludicrous that children are growing up in the kind of deprivation we normally associate with developing countries. Simultaneously, we must ensure that no one is discouraged from growing their income or assets. One potential solution is a universal basic income, which would provide an annual benefit to every citizen. However, this idea comes with a hefty price tag and would either increase our national deficit or increase the marginal tax rate, both of which might be political non-starters. The simpler solution is a Negative Income Tax (NIT) which is potentially cheaper than our current poverty alleviation efforts. An NIT is a refundable tax credit which brings every household to the federal poverty level. The most effective way to do this is to decrease the credit slowly (for example, a $0.50 reduction for each $1.00 increase in earned income) so that there is never a penalty for hard work. (my bold)
"In the most prosperous nation in the world, it is ludicrous that children are growing up in the kind of deprivation we normally associate with developing countries."
I can tell you EXACTLY WHY that happens...
Women on public assistance, as a group, have a 3 times higher birth rate than women (with or without partners) who support themselves and their children (Source: US Census Bureau), even though there are over 14,000 publicly funded family planning clinics located throughout the US (the VAST majority of which are county health department clinics so there's no excuse for lack of access or cost).
Anyone who understands compounded population growth projection will understand that this is a recipe for disaster. It's mathematically unsustainable. Period.
I'll give an example of the future consequences using the following formula (compounded population growth projection) and values, given the rate ratios we already know (non-poor : poor = 1 : 3), after a time period of 50 years (roughly, the time span of two generations), and using a small sample size for the sake of making an easier comparison.
The formula is:
present value x (e)^kt = future value
where e equals the constant 2.71828..., k equals the rate of increase (expressed as a decimal, e.g. 5% would be 0.05), and t is the number of years (or other unit, as long as it is the same as k) over which the growth is to be measured.
Given: 100 births/year. 52 non-poor. 48 poor.
k for the non-poor = 1% = 0.01
k for the poor = 3% = 0.03
Non-poor population after 50 years: 85.73
Poor population after 50 years: 215.12
They began at:
Non-poor: 52%
Poor: 48%
And after 50 years of population growth given the rate ratios we already know, that results in:
Non-poor: 28.5%
Poor: 71.5%
The poor/low-income are WAY overbreeding, encouraged and enabled to do so by all the freebie public assistance benefits they get. Do you recognize the problem for society that presents? What's the plan to PAY for that?
The percentage of the US population that cannot support themselves and their dependents will increase exponentially, while those paying taxes will be increasingly unable to pay enough to support them all. Add to that the millions of third-world poor immigrating illegally. And on top of all that, the continually growing poor population will not be paying enough (if anything at all) into SS and Medicare to sustain those programs. It's all completely mathematically unsustainable, and the US's society is already beginning to feel the effects.
The people who think growing the population regardless of that population's ability to pay into the system have just simply failed to think this through. It's not about "body count;" the added population has to be capable of contributing to the system, or the system collapses... implodes in on itself. That's the reality we're facing...
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