Your thoughts on this passage?

[asterism]

My word, but you make a huge number of assumptions, asterism. Where have I said I wanted to increase the budget for social programs? Have I not said some are poorly designed and should be halted?

The debate is not about the existing federal budget....it's more philosophical. Should we, as members of this society, underwrite the cost of social programs for the poor? I say we should. You seem to be saying we should not.

Not true. I say we should and I do myself what I ask others to do. I do not think the government should be the entity providing this relief.

Okay. Now can you please explain why?

It's inefficient, rife with corruption, and ineffective.

 

[asterism]

Not sterilize, JB. Use norplant or whatnot so that for a period of time, they cannot conceive. Does that make me a monster?

Temporary measures have a tendency to become extended indefinitely

Well, it could cut both ways. Most people have a fairly strong desire to have a family....so getting up on your own hind legs would be even more desirable. For those who never can, I'm not sure preventing them from reproducing is so bad.

Margaret Sanger thought the same way.

I don't think you are a racist but I think she was. Is there a certain "group" of people you wish to help by preventing them from making their own choices?

 

[Madeline]

Temporary measures have a tendency to become extended indefinitely

Well, it could cut both ways. Most people have a fairly strong desire to have a family....so getting up on your own hind legs would be even more desirable. For those who never can, I'm not sure preventing them from reproducing is so bad.

Margaret Sanger thought the same way.

I don't think you are a racist but I think she was. Is there a certain "group" of people you wish to help by preventing them from making their own choices?

Teenaged moms and the children they have.

 

[JBeukema]

My morals compel me to take care of those less fortunate, my reward for doing well is the true gift of the life I am able to live doing so.

Nowhere does my moral foundation compel me to outsource that role to the government, nor tolerate its ineffectiveness at doing so. It also does not provide any means to listen to those commanding something of me that which they have not done themselves.

Firstly, who said anything about government?

Liberals.

Actually, aside form Maddie, it's been the conservatives who've assumed the State would be involved; they can;'t imagine helping a starving child without someone forcing them to.

Some, most or all that think more government programs in helping the poor is a correct path.

more than?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/general/145916-your-thoughts-on-this-passage-3.html#post3075862

Because it's the nature of a system where those who write the rules with the absolute authority also get to participate as a beneficiary and get their own special rules.

Like BP running the MMS?

A significant portion of it is still thinking Communism, Socialism, and/or Marxism could work if only the right people are put in charge.

Communism is a democratic system. In fact, communists tend towards direct democracy.


You prefer anarchy and mayhem?

 

[JBeukema]

Unfortunately government is that higher source of morality for many people.

I find it revealing that so many on the right can not imagine a poor man or a sick child being aided or shown compassion by any agent other than the State. I never mentioned the State, yet you can only imagine the State acting to aid the poor- not a person here has imagined themselves, their neighbor, or even the Salvation Army fulfilling this role in society.

Why is that?

Speaking for me, it's because this isn't my first rodeo and I know where liberals are headed when they start out like this. You want more government. You think it's the best option.

Say what?

Weekends Without Hunger Act

Defense Spending?

Corn Ethanol Subsidies?

Farm Subsidies?

Amtrak?


Do cite.

Also: Let me google that for you

 

[Madeline]

Asterism, I am asking you the same question I asked boedicca earlier: given your POV, which social programs would you close? (No one is going to argue most or all of them could use reformation.)

 

[asterism]

Asterism, I am asking you the same question I asked boedicca earlier: given your POV, which social programs would you close? (No one is going to argue most or all of them could use reformation.)

Any federal assistance program that operates as a centralized bureaucracy. The government collects tax revenue from all the states and redistributes it according to their priorities and takes out a cut for overhead. That model is structurally flawed. Instead of collecting that revenue and gaining control over it there should be federal subsidy programs to fill in the gaps where states and private charities are lacking. That is assuming getting the federal government out of all charitable aid is feasible.

Also, welfare needs to be identified as such, funded accordingly, and distributed according to those priorities ideally on the state level. Earned Income Tax Credit isn't a tax cut, it's welfare. Unemployment compensation lasting 99 weeks is not temporary jobless assistance, it's welfare. Social Security isn't a retirement plan or an insurance policy, it's welfare. Restructure those programs along those lines, determine the cost to fund them as such and cut the tax collection to a sustainable rate accordingly.

Ideally, Social Security should not be a government program at all, but a public-private partnership on a specially regulated annuity similar to a pension but without the centralized bureaucratic control.

 

[editec]

Taxation in a REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC is not remotely anything like slavery.

Anybody who believes such nonsense as taxation is slavery is basically telling you that they are sociopathic personalities.

 

[Madeline]

Asterism, I am asking you the same question I asked boedicca earlier: given your POV, which social programs would you close? (No one is going to argue most or all of them could use reformation.)

Any federal assistance program that operates as a centralized bureaucracy. The government collects tax revenue from all the states and redistributes it according to their priorities and takes out a cut for overhead. That model is structurally flawed. Instead of collecting that revenue and gaining control over it there should be federal subsidy programs to fill in the gaps where states and private charities are lacking. That is assuming getting the federal government out of all charitable aid is feasible.

Also, welfare needs to be identified as such, funded accordingly, and distributed according to those priorities ideally on the state level. Earned Income Tax Credit isn't a tax cut, it's welfare. Unemployment compensation lasting 99 weeks is not temporary jobless assistance, it's welfare. Social Security isn't a retirement plan or an insurance policy, it's welfare. Restructure those programs along those lines, determine the cost to fund them as such and cut the tax collection to a sustainable rate accordingly.

Ideally, Social Security should not be a government program at all, but a public-private partnership on a specially regulated annuity similar to a pension but without the centralized bureaucratic control.

Your ideas have merit, asterism, but you overlook a few problems:

* If you "decentralize" one program into 50, it is hardly likely you will avoid waste, and you already have such a structure for most of the programs we've been discussing, e.g., Medicaid, TANF, food stamps, etc.

* If each state is free (and to a degree, they are now) to design its own social programs, you will influence people who need them to migrate away from states with low levels of benefits and into states with higher levels. At some point, this becomes a constitutional problem (equal protection, etc.) and meanwhile, it just adds to the irrationality factor.

* Failing to distinguish between government-monopolized insurance (unemployment, disability, retirement, etc.) and need-based social programs does not advance our thinking. There are many forms of insurance only available from the government....flood insurance is a good example. Does not render them anything other than insurance. Needs-based programs are not keying off any prior payments.

 

[JBeukema]

Ideally, Social Security should not be a government program at all, but a public-private partnership on a specially regulated annuity similar to a pension but without the centralized bureaucratic control.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Great-Risk-Shift-American-Retirement/dp/0195179501]Amazon.com: The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement--And How You Can Fight Back (9780195179507): Jacob S. Hacker: Books[/ame]

 

[JBeukema]

What we need in some of these programs is greater centralization.

Lack of centralization and proper organization leads to waste, such as when we have

• 342 economic development programs;
• 130 programs serving the disabled;
• 130 programs serving at-risk youth;
• 90 early childhood development programs;
• 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
• 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
• 50 homeless assistance programs;
• 45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations;
• 40 separate employment and training programs;
• 28 rural development programs;
• 27 teen pregnancy programs;
• 26 small, extraneous K-12 school grant programs;
• 23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
• 19 programs fighting substance abuse;
• 17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
• 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements;
• 12 food safety agencies;
• 11 principal statistics agencies; and
• Four overlapping land management agencies.http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/04/top-10-examples-of-government-waste#_ftn20
• http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/04/top-10-examples-of-government-waste#_ftn20

source

 

[JBeukema]

* If each state is free (and to a degree, they are now) to design its own social programs, you will influence people who need them to migrate away from states with low levels of benefits and into states with higher levels. At some point, this becomes a constitutional problem (equal protection, etc.) and meanwhile, it just adds to the irrationality factor.

Not if we overturn the ruling that prevented California from saying you had to be a resident for a certain amount of time to qualify for aid- a law they'd in place to prevent such abuse and 'welfare hopping'.

There are many forms of insurance only available from the government....flood insurance is a good example

Why can I buy fire, life, and renter's- but not flood- insurance from a private insurance company?

 

[MikeK]

Government has no claim on your assets.

You should bring that to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. (Please advise us of their response.)

 

[MikeK]

A man has a right to the fruits of his labour. Yet a man also has a right to his life and, by extension, to that which he needs to sustain it- water, shelter, food, and clothing. The just society allows men to keep what they have rightfully earned by their own hand after it has been seen to it that none among its people- most especially the elderly, the children, the ill and infirm-those who cannot provide or care for themselves- are tended to and that none who is willing to work and contribute as he is able is left to starve, to freeze, to die of thirst, or to be left as a dog in the alleyway. The first priority of the good society is to see to it that all the People are afforded the ability to achieve a good standard of living and socio-political parity with his fellows. Those who have accumulated wealth are morally obligated, as they are able, to contribute to this effort. Once this most fundamental objective, this commandment which is placed upon us from a higher source of morality and justice is seen to, then the second priority of the good society is to see to it that those who earn for themselves are not robbed of what is rightfully theirs to satiate the greed of the envious.

The charitable aspect of your commentary is commendable but your tacit defense of the super-rich is subject to question. Specifically, your assertion that those who seek to limit the accumulation of excessive personal assets are motivated by envy is specious at best.

Within the past three decades the distribution of wealth in America has reached the point where 90% of the Nation's wealth resources have come under the control of 2% of the population, a situation which hasn't existed since the 1920s and which brought about the Great Depression by suppressing the buying power of the economic underclass. The cause of this disparity has been the sequential elimination of regulations which heretofore had effectively prevented the excessive accumulation of wealth via devious manipulation of the System.

Your use of the term, rightfully earned, implies parity between the individual who labors to draw a wage, or spends seven days a week growing a business, or incurs substantial risk trading stocks to draw a reasonable dividend rate -- and the individual whose vast fortune derives from exploiting some methodically positioned flaw in the System, or through some usurious banking procedures, or by operating some perfectly legal "sub-prime" mortgage scam, etc. Do you assume that wealth acquired through legally "rightful" means is in all examples morally "rightful?"

Bottom line: Do you believe there is an important difference between wealth and excessive wealth? And do you believe that excessive wealth in the hands of the wrong people is a menace to political stability, therefore democracy?

 

[Madeline]

* If each state is free (and to a degree, they are now) to design its own social programs, you will influence people who need them to migrate away from states with low levels of benefits and into states with higher levels. At some point, this becomes a constitutional problem (equal protection, etc.) and meanwhile, it just adds to the irrationality factor.

Not if we overturn the ruling that prevented California from saying you had to be a resident for a certain amount of time to qualify for aid- a law they'd in place to prevent such abuse and 'welfare hopping'.

You'd have to amend the constitution, JB. That decision rests squarely on the Full Faith clause, among others. Like it or not, the US is not a mutual aid society for 50 sovereign states.

There are many forms of insurance only available from the government....flood insurance is a good example

Why can I buy fire, life, and renter's- but not flood- insurance from a private insurance company?

You cannot always buy these lines, JB. In most of east coastal America, you cannot buy some or any forms of real property insurance privately.....your only resort is a government created pool. Flood insurance is prolly never going to be private ever again in part because only the largest possible geographical spread of risk allows the program to be financially viable. In some states, the high risk pools for auto insurance are government created pools. Etc.

 

[xotoxi]

The OP promotes a destructive form of altruism in which one is allowed to keep the dregs of one's productivity only after all those in NEED first feed off of him.

No thank you.

The only reason why Government exists is because altruism is a myth.

 

[asterism]

Asterism, I am asking you the same question I asked boedicca earlier: given your POV, which social programs would you close? (No one is going to argue most or all of them could use reformation.)

Any federal assistance program that operates as a centralized bureaucracy. The government collects tax revenue from all the states and redistributes it according to their priorities and takes out a cut for overhead. That model is structurally flawed. Instead of collecting that revenue and gaining control over it there should be federal subsidy programs to fill in the gaps where states and private charities are lacking. That is assuming getting the federal government out of all charitable aid is feasible.

Also, welfare needs to be identified as such, funded accordingly, and distributed according to those priorities ideally on the state level. Earned Income Tax Credit isn't a tax cut, it's welfare. Unemployment compensation lasting 99 weeks is not temporary jobless assistance, it's welfare. Social Security isn't a retirement plan or an insurance policy, it's welfare. Restructure those programs along those lines, determine the cost to fund them as such and cut the tax collection to a sustainable rate accordingly.

Ideally, Social Security should not be a government program at all, but a public-private partnership on a specially regulated annuity similar to a pension but without the centralized bureaucratic control.

Your ideas have merit, asterism, but you overlook a few problems:

* If you "decentralize" one program into 50, it is hardly likely you will avoid waste, and you already have such a structure for most of the programs we've been discussing, e.g., Medicaid, TANF, food stamps, etc.

Right now we have state programs and the centralized federal program. Cutting the federal program out of the loop avoids waste at that level which I think is the most inefficient. The state programs are already there.

* If each state is free (and to a degree, they are now) to design its own social programs, you will influence people who need them to migrate away from states with low levels of benefits and into states with higher levels. At some point, this becomes a constitutional problem (equal protection, etc.) and meanwhile, it just adds to the irrationality factor.

That's already an issue and currently people generally don't move for benefits, nor can they be expected to move in search of a job. There aren't any equal protection issues right now so I don't see how there will be with even more local control. That said, states would be free to run their own affairs as they see fit like they currently do with unemployment insurance. Out of staters do not qualify for Florida unemployment insurance just because they moved here.

* Failing to distinguish between government-monopolized insurance (unemployment, disability, retirement, etc.) and need-based social programs does not advance our thinking. There are many forms of insurance only available from the government....flood insurance is a good example. Does not render them anything other than insurance. Needs-based programs are not keying off any prior payments.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Welfare is welfare. Separate the insurance from the welfare.


Could you please refrain from making it hard to have a conversation by choosing your own special font, size and color?

 

[Wry Catcher]

the unproductive are never satisfied with what is taken from the productive.

lol

 

[JBeukema]

Forgive the lateness of my reply; something came up while I was composing it and I was forced to delay its completion by several hours

your tacit defense of the super-rich is subject to question.

The accumulation of wealth in itself harms noone.

Specifically, your assertion that those who seek to limit the accumulation of excessive personal assets are motivated by envy is specious at best.

Discussions on this forum and the flavour of American political discourse make it evident that such is oft the case.

Within the past three decades the distribution of wealth in America has reached the point where 90% of the Nation's wealth resources have come under the control of 2% of the population, a situation which hasn't existed since the 1920s and which brought about the Great Depression by suppressing the buying power of the economic underclass.

I refer you to my posts regarding outsourcing and my calls for ban on imported goods not certified sweat-free or failing to meet American environmental and safety standards. What you describe is, I believe, a symptom of capitalism and the power of corporate bodies to operate transnationally and undermine the socialist progress made in the West by circumventing the power of the People as manifest in the authority and might of the nation-state. This has enabled them to operate worldwide to exploit the proletariat where they have not achieved representative government or protections from capitalist exploitation while the middle class which rose with earlier reforms in the United States has found itself facing a declining real income and growing unemployment as the reactionary elements in congress (most of them Republicans) have urged them to return to the sweat shops to compete in the 'global labour market'. These reactionaries raise the banner of the bourgeoisie and exploitation while chanting that the common man is responsible for this decline in his standard of living for being 'greedy' and demanding a decent standard of living. These reactionary elements are waging a successful class war against the common man and destroying the nation in the progress. While the system is not sustainable, since they will ultimately exterminate the middle class which constitutes the market demand for the goods goods and services they bring to market, this is not a problem in their eyes for several reasons:

1)They continue to amass enough wealth to ensure they can 'ride out' the ensuing chaos

2)They can continue to manipulate the world's nation-states to allow the rise of a new consumer class as another is undermined and returns to the sweatshops

3)These trends take a long time to play out, which makes it improbable many of those who act today will be alive to suffer the long-term socio-political and historical effects of this class war

The cause of this disparity has been the sequential elimination of regulations which heretofore had effectively prevented the excessive accumulation of wealth via devious manipulation of the System.

We must define what constitutes 'excessive wealth accumulation'. I posit that 'excessive wealth accumulation' is not the problem. Rather, the problem is grossly disproportionate wealth concentration, which is problematic because it inherently leads, even in cases where the demand for a decent standard of living for all persons is satisfied, to sociopolitical inequality between the wealthy- who have always been the ruling class due to their ability to manipulate governments and control armies- and the less wealthy, who become subjects of the former. When this occurs, then- as you can see- the demand for socioeconomic parity amongst all persons is not satisfied, and the society cannot be said to be a good and just society. There comes the need for reforms to combat the exploitation and tyranny which have always followed in history- regardless of the political dressings of the society in question.

Your use of the term, rightfully earned, implies parity between the individual who labors to draw a wage, or spends seven days a week growing a business, or incurs substantial risk trading stocks to draw a reasonable dividend rate -- and the individual whose vast fortune derives from exploiting some methodically positioned flaw in the System, or through some usurious banking procedures, or by operating some perfectly legal "sub-prime" mortgage scam, etc.

It does not. Rather it demands that we ask who has rightfully earned their wealth and has a moral and ethical right to it. A thief might labour and toil to achieve his heist, yet few would claim he has rightfully earned the spoils of his theft. Your use of the word 'scam' implies a judgment that those in question have, like the thief, not rightfully earned their wealth, but have instead acquired it by indefensible means. I will not argue that point in this discussion, but will say that if such is the case, then the criteria laid out earlier in the discussion have not been satisfied and there is case to be made that their gains are rightfully to be confiscated and returned to those persons who have a moral, ethical, and/or legal claim to the property or other wealth in question,

Do you assume that wealth acquired through legally "rightful" means is in all examples morally "rightful?"

Their is a significant distinction to be made between was it right and what is lawful. While the law should reflect what is right (moral). Furthermore, what is ethical does not always mirror what is legal or what is moral.

Bottom line: Do you believe there is an important difference between wealth and excessive wealth?

No. I refer you to the brief discussion above of grossly disproportionate wealth distribution and how it is distinct from what you deem 'excessive' wealth accumulation.

And do you believe that excessive wealth in the hands of the wrong people is a menace to political stability, therefore democracy?

No. I once again refer you to the points made above about grossly disproportionate wealth concentration versus what you deem to be 'excessive wealth accumulation'

 

[JBeukema]

* If each state is free (and to a degree, they are now) to design its own social programs, you will influence people who need them to migrate away from states with low levels of benefits and into states with higher levels. At some point, this becomes a constitutional problem (equal protection, etc.) and meanwhile, it just adds to the irrationality factor.

Not if we overturn the ruling that prevented California from saying you had to be a resident for a certain amount of time to qualify for aid- a law they'd in place to prevent such abuse and 'welfare hopping'.

You'd have to amend the constitution, JB. That decision rests squarely on the Full Faith clause, among others. Like it or not, the US is not a mutual aid society for 50 sovereign states.

There are many forms of insurance only available from the government....flood insurance is a good example

Why can I buy fire, life, and renter's- but not flood- insurance from a private insurance company?

You cannot always buy these lines, JB. In most of east coastal America, you cannot buy some or any forms of real property insurance privately.....your only resort is a government created pool.

This implies their is no market for it. Can you explain to me why the government should fill this role?

Did you not intend to imply earlier that the government should be the only provider of such insurance as only they are capable of doing so properly? That is how I took your response. Was I mistaken in that understanding?