*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Friday, June 13th, 2014 4:28am PDT - promote requested by eric3579.

Awaiting the expected right wing dismissal.
I would totally give this a *quality, but I'm not one of the privileged elite.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by eric3579.

pfft, the rich have welfare, they just call it tax breaks, and they have the lobbyists to keep them.

No one wants those on foodstamps to use them for alcohol and other frivolous items. name me one non-foodstamp-using person who does? It's a strawman that the right obsessively cling to.

As with so many things, it's not about laws or bureaucracy, it's about enforcement. laws mean nothing without enforcement. I'm getting sick of seeing more and more panhandlers downtown where I live and I completely agree that handouts are not an efficient solution.

but you know what isn't a good solution either? negative reinforcement. We've been living under the conservative idea that if we just keep punishing the poor and making their lives more miserable, then obviously that will be motivation to not be poor.

IT DOESN'T WORK. maybe it works for a small percentage of people, but those people aren't poor then. so you have a group of people that are continually being punished and devalued for no good fucking reason because if they aren't motivated to not be poor under these kinds of conditions, then they never will be.

so again, we have this situation where there are two solutions that aren't really effective, but one is slightly less bad than the other. sure some people may use their foodstamps for alcohol and other shit...but many people do actually use their foodstamps for...food. shock.

Even if you had a much more equal distribution of wealth, we're still going to have poor people and people in poverty.

I think the issue is largely mired in health, physical and mental. Even with all our technology...mental health is still unreliable and some people are so physically impaired that they can't work or work well.

Despite largely claiming to be pro-life, the right would either secretly want them to die alone in an alley or make them indentured servants to some corporation if they aren't already. That, I submit, is no life, at least not a good and healthy one.

I don't have the answer, all we can really do is point out that many of the things we've tried aren't working and will never work, and even if there are some successes, it's still largely inefficient, but what's the alternative? if you are "pro-life" then an inefficient solution is still preferable to a solution that simply doesn't work. So I call bullshit on people who like to claim they have the solution. If someone out there has the solution, they certainly haven't demonstrated it yet.

US tax redistribution is greatest by absolute volume from the middle class to the middle class, although the per person benefits the wealthier get through subsidies and deductions are higher.

The issue is, a lot of them are not explicitly specified and are not large programmes but form various subsidies already built into prices such as the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction.

Comparing to Australia, the actual tax take is 25% of GDP for both, yet the expenditure is roughly 40% for the US and 35% for AU, despite the fact we both have a generous welfare which doesn't expire and a public health care system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP

The Submerged State is a good book on this from what I've heard, here's a summary:

http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2012/04/our-%E2%80%98submerged-state%E2%80%99-invisible-government-policies-may-surprise-you

There should be no minimum payout for people. You should work and contribute to society.

All the more reason to replace the tax code for a consumption tax. Every ones finger is in the pot and hence a big reason we are are disillusioned in government.


There should only be a very few breaks for the people and only a few for business.

There are those who for no fault of their own are dealt a bad hand in life and they should be well taken care of.

But we vote for the guy wearing the right jersey regardless of their true ideology and we all end up getting screwed.

Dependance on drugs and dependance on welfare, both attract the same folk.

Yea, you just can't get a party started without food stamps.