Quote:
Originally Posted by Daldolma
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Serious question: at what point does it stop being the responsibility of the wealthy to provide for the less wealthy? What's the cut-off? What entitlements are "rights" and what are indulgences? Food, I think we all agree, should be provided by the government. Education, too. Shelter. Maybe even non-emergency health care.
But when do you say -- "OK, we're providing enough for the baseline citizen. Let's stop raising taxes on the rich"? Do citizens have a right to comfort? I'd argue that they don't. You have a right to survival and equality of opportunity -- not to comfort. In fact, you *should* be uncomfortable if you're unemployed. You should be uncomfortable until you're employed.
I'm not a big proponent of raising taxes on the rich. I'm not theoretically opposed to it, but in practice, the US government hasn't earned my faith. The government is inherently inefficient, and American welfare programs are largely unsuccessful. The money raised by taxes is more likely to be spent on administrative bullshit or defense than on lower classes.
I prefer less ambiguous measures. A significant raise in the minimum wage, for instance, is long overdue. It is impossible to live comfortably on current minimum wage. Reforming the tax code to eliminate loopholes is necessary. The wealthier you are, the easier it is for you to get out of paying taxes. That's backward. Taxes should be simple and unavoidable. Greatly increase regulations on financial institutions. And fixes are necessary for the health care and education systems in America, but I won't pretend to have the answers to those questions. Raising taxes is not even close to a solution to those problems.
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You're smart until your last sentence.
I guess everyone is going to have a different line, but since you quoted me, my line is right about here (in approximate order of importance):
Shelter. Food. Medicine (really great healthcare for all people). Defense (
actual defense, not "defense" as a euphemism for being a colonial empire). Education (preschool-doctorate). Infrastructure (better roads, highways, bridges, public transit, emergency services [police, fire, ems, disaster response], better water & power systems). Public works & entertainment (monuments, spectacles [4th of July, NYE], speeches & debates).
I'm probably forgetting something, but that's the jist.
Most of these are things that #1 we already provide in some form, or at least purport to provide, and that #2 are provided in countries with higher (flatter) taxes on the rich, which are still somehow able to provide enough incentives to corporations to stay there despite the higher taxes (defeating the argument which states that the money will run if taxes are raised).
I'm not proposing to put Shaquiniquila - mother of 9 children - up at The Ritz. I agree that it should be uncomfortable to ask for assistance. I agree that the current systems in this country have failed miserably. That is no fucking excuse for letting people go hungry but for the charity of strangers. Those people shouldn't have to beg on the streets while the fat cats cruise their helipad-equipped yachts on Uncle Sam's dime.
That shit is fucking ridiculous. We hook the banks up with billions, and that's cool, but when it comes to obtaining enough money to scrape by, you bitches wanna cry foul. It's cool to throw hundreds of billions of dollars on the military so that they can go do some shit in some other country, but it's near-impossible for someone who has worked their entire life in the trades and has ended up actually disabled and poor in this country to get any assistance for being really disabled or really being poor. I know lots of stories like that, and I'm sure if you think about it you do too.
I'm not talking about trailer trash freeloaders or EBT trading crackheads. They actually have an easier time of it because there are so many private outreach programs set up for abused women etc. to supplement the shitty government program.
No private outreach programs set up for 45 year old blue collar guys without the ability to work.
Meanwhile the CEO's apply their cost/benefit analysis to whether or not to squeeze every dime out of the customer through engineered faults (WHY THE FUCK AREN'T CELL PHONES WATERPROOF???) and planned obsolescence or actually try to provide a good product that will last. They decide fuck you, put some colored lights on it, you'll buy it anyway.
..and thus the people take the streets.