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The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

nytimes.com

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Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#91

Post by tonomics »

giardini wrote: post #77
xacaxulu wrote: post #13

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot…

My understanding is that the CATO Institute is paid for largely by the right-winger Charles Koch (a former member of the John Birch Society) and is an organization that shills right-wing thought. The CATO institute isn't an "independent think tank" - it's been set up to promote a right-wing agenda. Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-bus…

" entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations"

So, these 'evil networks' of small-business owners want less taxes to grow their business by making more money and employing more people?

I can't see how an employed and wealthy population could be a bad thing.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#92

Post by themartorana »

giardini wrote: post #77
xacaxulu wrote: post #13

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot…

My understanding is that the CATO Institute is paid for largely by the right-winger Charles Koch (a former member of the John Birch Society) and is an organization that shills right-wing thought. The CATO institute isn't an "independent think tank" - it's been set up to promote a right-wing agenda. Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-bus…

As I understand it, CATO isn't so much right-wing as libertarian, which immediately has a small-government connotation to it. To support itself it often points out government fraud and waste, to which I happily acquiesce there is plenty (defense spending even the Joint Chiefs are explicitly against comes to mind).

Unfortunately, taking care of the less fortunate gets rolled into these arguments, only sometimes on purpose. It's rather difficult to individually consider the human benefit to welfare programs when congressmen/women with ties to defense-industry districts can just as easily make an argument for the jobs and wages paid to the working class because of those programs.

I think this is why (very much conjecture-ing here) there seems to be a groundswell of support for the idea of guaranteed income. If you can solve some of the individual woes people have collectively by giving everyone a basic income, it's easier to argue for and against government spending for individual programs, because far fewer will be able to have such a socially destructive effect if they are cancelled.

Just a thought.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#93

Post by themartorana »

tonomics wrote: post #91
giardini wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the CATO Institute is paid for largely by the right-winger Charles Koch (a former member of the John Birch Society) and is an organization that shills right-wing thought. The CATO institute isn't an "independent think tank" - it's been set up to promote a right-wing agenda. Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-bus…

" entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations" So, these 'evil networks' of small-business owners want less taxes to grow their business by making more money and employing more people? I can't see how an employed and wealthy population could be a bad thing.

The dichotomy is between small businesses that will employ more people, and those organizations that put enriching themselves before preventing human suffering.

Lower taxes and higher owner incomes aren't 1:1 equatable to job creation or greater collective wealth.

Data: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20...

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#94

Post by justifier »

xacaxulu wrote: post #30
lazyant wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some may argue that the US military is a big provider of welfare, handing out "fictitious" jobs to almost anybody in a "socialist" way.

I'm very aware of this argument and even agree with it in some cases. I will say that it's still 'work' in a very real sense. In my case, it was the most respectable ways for me to earn my way out of poverty and eventually have enough money for college.

but do you see the subjectivity of your opinion?

> was too proud

> the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help

> the most respectable ways

you are placing your own morality on other peoples' choices with definitive and hostile rhetoric

you speak of pride, respect, and hurt, but have you examined these ideas for yourself?

perhaps someone on welfare is more proud that they stayed out of the military, an entity often acting as a machine of violence used to enable politicians' often dubious goals

perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is more respectable to accept aide from others than support military effort

perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is less hurtful to accept aide from others than to accept work supporting goals that often lead to direct hurt being inflicted on others

so, by your own criteria those accepting welfare are in the right as well because they are: too proud to join the military, think it is more respectable to stay out of the military, and think the military causes hurt more than welfare

i think it's dangerous to question a person's character lest you be prepared to have your own questioned

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#95

Post by projectileboy »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #74
legutierr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this accurate? It basically says that middle class people spend six times as much paying for corporate subsidies than they spend paying for things like defense, welfare payments, medicare, etc., combined. The fact that the information is conveyed using a poor-quality jpeg screenshot of an unattributed infographic from two years ago, however, does not inspire confidence. The two sources at the bottom of the graphic…

No it's not accurate. I mean hell, $7 of your $50k goes to welfare? That's 0.014%. In reality, depending on what you want to call welfare (republicans like to call everything welfare and pretend it's bankrupting the country in order to scale it down, for example, so you have wildly different definitions in the political spectrum) it's around 5-8% of GDP. So this is just laughably inaccurate. Defense spending of $250,…

You bring up many excellent points. There are worthwhile corporate subsidies, just like there are worthwhile social "welfare" programs. I've known many US citizens who criticized "welfare" (i.e., food stamps for the urban poor), who were perfectly happy to pick up unemployment checks. My original point wasn't really to criticize all corporate subsidies per se, but simply to point out that when US citizens criticize "welfare", it's often a result of their having been cynically manipulated away from focusing on their own real interests.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#96

Post by Frondo »

mikeash wrote: post #64
rayiner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The few thousand dollars you might save not buying a TV or cell phone isn't going to do shit to get you out of poverty. You can't save your way out of being poor a nickle and dime at a time.

It means you can stop wasting money on buying necessities constantly in small quantities, not pay massive interest on credit cards or payday loans because your needs a sudden repair, etc. Will this solve the problem? Surely not for everybody. But a big problem (even if far from the only problem) with getting out of poverty is that it's a trap because it's so expensive to be poor.

Except it doesn't mean that. It means that when you have $300 in the bank instead of buying a cheap TV set, and suddenly your car needs $500 in repairs, you're still going to a payday loan place, except you're on the hook for $200 instead of $500. Still paying the fees, still stuck in the let's-rip-off-the-poor cycle, except you also don't have a tv set.

I know, I know, now you'll say "well you're poor, what do you need a tv set for, you should sit in your dank apartment with just the road noise for entertainment," and that's where the compassion kicks in: these folks are poor, they're not animals, and if TV lets them be less miserable, it's about as cheap a way to do so as is reasonable.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#97

Post by tonomics »

themartorana wrote: post #93
tonomics wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations" So, these 'evil networks' of small-business owners want less taxes to grow their business by making more money and employing more people? I can't see how an employed and wealthy population could be a bad thing.

The dichotomy is between small businesses that will employ more people, and those organizations that put enriching themselves before preventing human suffering. Lower taxes and higher owner incomes aren't 1:1 equatable to job creation or greater collective wealth. Data: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20...

And they do

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2014/wp14114.pdf

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#98

Post by pen2l »

rayiner wrote: post #71
msbarnett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. Education funding in the US is wildly uneven. Spend some time visiting inner-city schools. They are not even remotely "well-funded". Property-tax driven school funding formulas ensure that richer areas have much,…

Inner city public schools are some of the most well-funded in the county. Washington DC is almost entirely "inner city" public schools (I.e. Almost all the student population is low income) and has the highest per student spending. The wealthy suburb of DC where I grew up spends $13,500 per student per year. That's a lot less than DC or Baltimore or Chicago, all of which have 70-85% low-income students, and only mode…

So what's going on then? Exactly how are inner cities misusing funds, and what are wealthy suburbs doing right that they're able to get such bang for their buck?

Also, are you certain that wealthy suburbs are spending that little? I know some rich families in NYC who are sending their kids in high school to schools that ask above $50k. It's a straight pipeline to Ivy league, and from what I understand there are good reasons this high school asks $50k -- they have top of the line 3d printers, souped up computers, etc.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#99

Post by baobabaobab »

akallio9000 wrote: post #79

Just the photo alone made me facepalm. Why buy a riding lawn mower for five times the price of a basic push mower that would easily mow a trailer park lawn in 10 - 15 minutes?

You're looking at a piece of equipment that can be used to generate income, maybe that's what it's for. It also could have been cheap/broken/free, and they intend to flip it.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#100

Post by caseysoftware »

Money in politics corrupts!

Money in the financial markets is evil!

Money in health care taints decision making!

But money going to poor people? Nah, there are no downsides at all.

If money encourages bad behavior and poor decision making, then it shouldn't apply in all of these situations?

Or alternatively, maybe it's not the money at all but the people themselves?

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