taxation and social benefits (or the lack thereof)

Sure. That's why I fought to make sure that wasn't what I had to do. Even in the short term. I've been back at work for a week and never happier about it. It just got me thinking about what happens if I had a similar scare in the future.

I was fortunate to be born with life tools and opportunities that aren't available to everyone. I had a father that taught me patience and kindness, and a mother who taught me practical things including good financial management and also supported my intellectual growth. Even before I started doing many things on my own, I had these advantages from the beginning. They certainly aren't something I "earned" on my own as a child. Is there a single person on this earth who individually "earned" every opportunity they have ever had? It ticks me off when people claim that they deserve what they have at the cost of others because they "earned" it while at the same time putting down other people as being worth less because those people didn't have the same tools available to work with and might be living in poverty.

Yes, I could individually give up everything I own and give it away to others, but how is doing so going to be a long-term solution? We as a society need to move away from the idea that in order for someone to have something, it must be at the cost of someone else. If someone wins, someone else must lose. It's just not true. We can find ways where everyone can benefit. (And no, I'm not talking communism before *that* accusation gets thrown at me from somewhere.)

We need to come to an agreement that it's *possible* to have a healthy, prosperous society that includes everyone, and then once we have that basic assumption, figure out how we're going to actually do it. Our main problem now is that we have far too many people insisting that it can't be done.

I love this thread. You guys just delivered me a final paper for one of my classes.

Continue!

clover wrote:

I love this thread. You guys just delivered me a final paper for one of my classes.

Continue!

I was going to joke about whether those mice were part of a string of Christmas Lights.

then I read the second to last bullet point. : D

bekkilyn wrote:

I NEVER said anything about forcibly taking ANYTHING from people. I never even brought up "socialism," whatever *that* really is other than a loaded term people typically bring up to promote fear-mongering among certain populations. All I am suggesting is that EVERYONE should have their basic needs met somehow and there is no excuse that we AS A SOCIETY have not managed this. Your "solutions" seem to be akin that an *individual* should make sure to eat every crumb from his/her plates during dinner because otherwise those poor children in a third-world country are starving, and that individual (usually a child) should be grateful he/she is not starving right along with them.

It's funny that for all the "limited resources" arguments that get thrown about all over the place, we certainly manage to scrounge up all the resources we need and then some whenever it just happens to mostly benefit those who already have most of the resources.

I'm not asking the wrong questions at all and I'm tired of the excuses of "we can't become a healthy society because of....reasons."

Instead of offering all the "can'ts" that I've heard over and over and over (and often peppered by a whole lot of political claptrap from all sides), why not offer suggestions of real *solutions* instead? It's always the "we can't, because..." though isn't it?

We really need to change our mentalities from the idea of scarceness over to abundance, and move away from the concepts of "I have mine, so screw the rest of you" that is currently so pervasive.

Aetius didn't say that as a society we couldn't, he said we don't want to do it, and I agree (that as a society we don't want to do it). And providing for someone is taking from someone else - usually this is done in the form of taxes.

However, I don't agree with how Aetius frames tax breaks - this is welfare for the middle and upper classes. The government is not taking money from them which is the same as putting that money they should be taking into their pockets - aka Government Welfare. And these breaks are MUCH larger then the welfare we commonly associate with what we give to the poor.

Shoal07 wrote:

However, I don't agree with how Aetius frames tax breaks - this is welfare for the middle and upper classes. The government is not taking money from them which is the same as putting that money they should be taking into their pockets - aka Government Welfare. And these breaks are MUCH larger then the welfare we commonly associate with what we give to the poor.

Yup.

And I think it's also why especially middle class folks don't think they get any benefits from the government. They see poor people getting actual monthly cash transfers from Uncle Sam while they get nothing. Of course they forget that their benefit check from Uncle Sam comes only once a year in April.

Shoal07 wrote:

Aetius didn't say that as a society we couldn't, he said we don't want to do it, and I agree (that as a society we don't want to do it). And providing for someone is taking from someone else - usually this is done in the form of taxes.

If we as a society aren't responsible for each other and the well-being of our society, then who do you propose *is*? Our current every man/woman for himself/herself hasn't been working.

Now I'm not suggesting that our tax systems don't need some improvements, but those of us who pay taxes are not just paying to provide to others without gaining any benefits for ourselves. Fire, police, education, military protection, etc. spring immediately to mind. We also have the choice to not participate in our society by choosing to not make taxable income, living off the grid, growing our own food, producing our own energy, etc. However, if we *are* going to be a part of our society and reap those benefits, then it comes with responsibilities.

bekkilyn wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Aetius didn't say that as a society we couldn't, he said we don't want to do it, and I agree (that as a society we don't want to do it). And providing for someone is taking from someone else - usually this is done in the form of taxes.

If we as a society aren't responsible for each other and the well-being of our society, then who do you propose *is*? Our current every man/woman for himself/herself hasn't been working.

Now I'm not suggesting that our tax systems don't need some improvements, but those of us who pay taxes are not just paying to provide to others without gaining any benefits for ourselves. Fire, police, education, military protection, etc. spring immediately to mind. We also have the choice to not participate in our society by choosing to not make taxable income, living off the grid, growing our own food, producing our own energy, etc. However, if we *are* going to be a part of our society and reap those benefits, then it comes with responsibilities.

I don't disagree with any of that - I fully understand how a society works. What I was actually saying is based on our society, we have chosen not to extend more social benefits like you see in England and other EU countries. Aetius's long post brings up a lot of good points, but I think the part below clearly articulates why our society continues to make this choice.

Aetius wrote:

Because these things take resources - and someone has to produce those resources. Let's say you have a person A who works and provides for their family. Then there is person B who doesn't (or can't - reason doesn't matter, for this argument). Is it acceptable to take resources produced by the first person and give them to the second person? Even if person A is unwilling and those resources will make the difference for person A's child surviving an illness?

This is the fundamental problem of all socialist systems. Once someone has a way to get what they need, there are large numbers of people who are perfectly fine with that - and not producing to provide for themselves. The greater the benefits, the worse the problem gets, the higher the burden is on the people who actually produce, and the stronger the incentive to avoid working for other people. It's a basic fact of nature that humans are largely self-centered; it's just how we are. And people get tired of other people living off of their labor and not taking care of themselves.

I have friends with children in the UK, and this problem is happening. The government provides housing, food, basically everything you need to live. And while 2 of his children when to Uni, one decided living off the government and playing COD all day was a fine lifestyle. This is a growing problem over there, and it makes these programs unsustainable. It also raises the problem that you have to do a lot to live any lifestyle better than what the government provides (and the more you earn the more they take) - and that barrier is creating a generation that are thinking it's not worth the effort.

There's probably a balance. The US is still trying to find that balance, as is the UK and other more socialist countries. How we go about that is different, we're erring on the side of providing little while they're in an over-providing scenario - but what does balance look like?

That balance doesn't need to look exactly like the U.K. because, unless I am mistaken, homelessness and poverty still exist there. They certainly haven't solved everything. However, we still need to get to the point where we recognize that there is a problem and we recognize that it *can* be solved and we recognize that we as a society have a responsibility to solve it. It seems many in the U.S. don't even recognize the problem since they believe that people are only poor, homeless, sick, etc. because they haven't worked hard enough and therefore must deserve it. In order to find solutions, we need enough of a mindset change to agree that we have a *solvable* problem, and then we have greater capacity to actually find solutions rather than endless arguments over whether or not there is a problem, or with the "it can't be done due to scarce resources" crowd. At this point, I'm not sure that the U.S. is even trying since as a whole, we seem very immature in our dealings towards each other. I suppose that would be a point in favor of the "we don't *want* to" thought.

I do have to wonder if in an ideally healthy society if your U.K friend's child would still feel the need to take advantage of the system? We do need to make sure that everyone's *basic* needs are met, regardless of whether or not some take advantage, but it certainly doesn't mean that there can't be more improvements from there so that people do feel that there are desirable rewards for their individual efforts beyond that point. (That's part of where communism goes wrong.) Many of those "people taking advantage" issues would very likely resolve on its own once people were able to live and function in a healthy environment. (Barring *clinical* illnesses) I suspect that those doing things like playing CoD all day, every day, are doing so out of some need to escape from whatever is weighing them down in the real world. But what if we all lived in an environment from which people didn't feel they needed to escape?

bekkilyn wrote:

I do have to wonder if in an ideally healthy society if your U.K friend's child would still feel the need to take advantage of the system? ... But what if we all lived in an environment from which people didn't feel they needed to escape?

Probably yes to both, and that comes down to human psychology. We have a long history (some would say ALL of human history) of both selfishness and a strong desire to escape reality. Besides the fact that reality is typically boring, we also use mediums from entertainment to drugs to accomplish escapism. There's exceptions, of course, but we write and read books about those people - to escape...

I also have to agree, again, with Aetius

Aetius wrote:

This is the fundamental problem of all socialist systems. Once someone has a way to get what they need, there are large numbers of people who are perfectly fine with that - and not producing to provide for themselves. The greater the benefits, the worse the problem gets, the higher the burden is on the people who actually produce, and the stronger the incentive to avoid working for other people. It's a basic fact of nature that humans are largely self-centered; it's just how we are. And people get tired of other people living off of their labor and not taking care of themselves.

This can kind of be boiled down to "everyone is motivated by different things." Look at Warren Buffet, he has all the money anyone could want and he lives in a moderate home and drove an old Volvo for years (I heard recently somewhere he decided to upgrade). I would have at least a Ferrari 458 - but I have a car fetish. That's besides the point - he met his needs and stopped buying stuff, but was still motivated to make large sums of money on the market. Maslow's hierarchy of needs also tells us that once basic needs are met, some people will stop "growing" and others will pursue "enlightenment." My point? I see it as quite plausible that if everyone had a house and food on the table there'd be very little reason for many to do much else.

Shoal07 wrote:

I see it as quite plausible that if everyone had a house and food on the table there'd be very little reason for many to do much else.

Even if it's plausible, it's still not a good excuse for leaving people homeless and hungry and sick. Maybe people might choose to stop growing at that point, but at least they would have the opportunity to make that choice. I think you might be surprised how many would make that choice given the right environment.

This seems to be a good start: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

bekkilyn wrote:

This seems to be a good start: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

The government providing housing in the US isn't new. In fact, there's about 1.3 million units. 40% elderly, 46% have children (so much for those childless folks not getting anything). In fact, if you read the link it's pretty much volumes of fun statistics.

Shoal07 wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

This seems to be a good start: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

The government providing housing in the US isn't new. In fact, there's about 1.3 million units. 40% elderly, 46% have children (so much for those childless folks not getting anything). In fact, if you read the link it's pretty much volumes of fun statistics.

The Housing First program in Utah is different from what is described in the link that you've posted. The information in your link is also from 1995 which is 10 years before Utah began to experiment with the Housing First idea. It also does not appear to discriminate against people without children. A 74% reduction in chronic homelessness in a single state is still not enough, but it's still a move in a positive direction. Also, the program appears to be *working* for its intended goal and also saving taxpayers more money than just leaving these people homeless. It's both humanitarian *and* economic (and it was implemented by a Republican in a largely conservative state.)

It has been suggested that this model may work for issues other than homelessness as well.

A couple more links that I found:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/20...
http://wyofile.com/kerrydrake/wyomin...

Now I don't live anywhere near Utah and don't claim to know all the details of this program, but I view what I've seen of it so far as a positive example of actively recognizing and finding *solutions* to problems rather than claiming that it can't be done or ignoring them as someone else's responsibility.

From the Wyoming homelessness article linked above:

It gives me hope that the person most responsible for turning the situation around in Utah said he had to undergo a “major paradigm shift” to see that the chronically homeless needed much more than his advice to get a job. Another positive sign is that several Utah communities that have resisted Housing First and considered it controversial are starting to come on board with its philosophy.

Again, a lot of what's holding us back is our mindsets.