Love this!!
Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
351–360 of 494 posts
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#352One of those things I wish could out last this virus. We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. The comments in here seem a little negative currently but this is great news. Think of all the people in NYC who didn't have access to clean and regular food before the virus.
>We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. this is not a statement you can make without qualifying. it is either a useless tautology (society would be better if society were better), or an actual argument about policy and procedures (if wealthier people paid more taxes, we could feed poorer people and society would be better). of course, no one says the second thing when that's…
On the other hand, the second and third order consequences to providing a stronger social safety net to people might be highly beneficial.
We can apply creativity to solving the world's problems without resorting to the slippery slope fallacy of the abandonment of capitalism completely.
Not every social experiment is a one-way door that cannot be tweaked, improved or abandoned. We need to be less cynical and be willing to experiment more without so much fear.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#353I find it fascinating that it seems so many people are against (sometimes vehemently) against others getting free food and shelter. There is no excuse for a modern civilization to not ensure that everyone has basic human needs met. Sure, we can argue some details like, "Is Netflix really a basic human need?"... joking aside, we as humans should endeavor to ensure that all people have their Maslow pyramid filled in.
I want to help other people I donate a decent chunk of my paycheck to humanitarian and other charitable efforts. I hate seeing people hungry, I grew up in a difficult situation and I hate seeing children go hungry. My problem isn't that I am against people getting free food and shelter I am opposed to being forced into charity at the point of gun by the state, and my liberties being eroded by moral busiebodies that f…
"Universally despised in most everything" is nonsense.
Do you really think everybody hates NASA? The National Park system, or your local/state parks)? Libraries and Museums? Weather and tide forecasts (which depend heavily on NOAA)? The NSF and NIH are world-renowned for the scope and quality of research they support. Food, drugs, cars, highways, and airplanes are all relatively safe.
Most of the government stuff is effective enough that people don't even think about it. The big tragedy of the current administration is that it's injected political chaos that characterizes some hot-button issues into the rest.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
maybe I'm just too cynical, but I have a hard time believing it would work out that way. the difference between the cheapest and most expensive brand of pasta is at least 4x. why wouldn't you buy the nicest brand every time? if the tax bracket adjustments had any bite, you would end up with poor families owing more tax than they earned income. this ends up basically equivalent to means testing anyway.
> if the tax bracket adjustments had any bite, you would end up with poor families owing more tax than they earned income. I mean... they'd be told that that would happen in advance. Wouldn't that then serve as an incentive to avoid making a pattern of taking home the more-expensive food? (They could still do it rarely, though. A one-time $50 bump in spending isn't going to affect your taxes.)
if you're really willing to allow that outcome, then your proposal is just an implicit benefit limit that's a bit harder to calculate. how is that different from / better than saying "here's $xxx to feed your family this month; budget appropriately"?
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. this is not a statement you can make without qualifying. it is either a useless tautology (society would be better if society were better), or an actual argument about policy and procedures (if wealthier people paid more taxes, we could feed poorer people and society would be better). of course, no one says the second thing when that's…
If you're going to make a rebuttal, then make a rebuttal. So far you haven't really said anything to refute his statement that society would be better off if everyone was guaranteed 3 meals per day.
I rebut that it is ok to offer "society would be better" as an argument. its an emotion, not a debatable proposition. here, let me take your side:
"given that good nutrition and a lack of stress from worrying about food allows people to develop more intellectually, raising taxes to pay for food welfare will actually raise money by introducing more workforce"
there are principles you can attack (good nutrition aids brain development, less stress aids brain development), an action to attack (raising taxes), and projected results to attack (better brain development yields higher workforce participation, higher workforce participation will raise more money).
this is an argument, something to be debated. "we'd be better if less people were hungry" is a useless platitude.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding your first paragraph: At least in a lot of european countries, income tax isn't even the most lucrative tax for the government. Additionally quite a few working people aren't paying income tax. When you can deduct 13k from your income each year, not many people working for a supermarket are paying income taxes for example. Example, Amazon and VW are creating high revenue in Austria and Germany yet their tax…
>At least in a lot of european countries, income tax isn't even the most lucrative tax for the government. Can you provide a few examples? What other revenue streams do those governments have?
Import/Export tariffs, excise tax (like VAT), payroll tax (also down), corporate tax. Though according to the following link, personal income tax is the largest chunk in the US.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-sourc...
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the suggestion is that we can afford to oversubscribe a program like this, because it'd be a guarantee that you'd be able to eat (i.e. food on demand), not a push-based delivery of the resources (money/food stamps/etc.) required to be able to eat, that people would then feel that they "should" use up, thus using less of their own money. Any American who didn't take advantage of a demand-driven food supply pro…
are you envisioning some mechanism to prevent people from having filet mignon and caviar every night for dinner? I'm not poor, but my grocery purchases would change a lot if I didn't have to pay for it myself.
Presumably we could come up with some sort of middle ground policy. For example, there could be certain foods that are excluded from the system or maybe only certain products are included. Or perhaps different products could use up more of a person's "food credits".
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#358Someone has made a nicer map of where you can get meals: https://nycfreemeals.com/
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#359One of those things I wish could out last this virus. We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. The comments in here seem a little negative currently but this is great news. Think of all the people in NYC who didn't have access to clean and regular food before the virus.
>We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. this is not a statement you can make without qualifying. it is either a useless tautology (society would be better if society were better), or an actual argument about policy and procedures (if wealthier people paid more taxes, we could feed poorer people and society would be better). of course, no one says the second thing when that's…
In all of your discussion, you never actually took a policy position. It's clear the OP is advocating for a public program to ensure no one in NYC/the US goes hungry, and that the government is the responsible party in that obligation.
Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
#360This will undoubtedly help a lot of people - something worth emulating in other places as well!