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Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

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Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#81

Post by zozbot234 »

supernova87a wrote: post #72
zozbot234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving money to households with no strings attached is the polar opposite of "private enterprise just sucking at the teat of free government money". I'm not sure why you think one would follow from the other. Public services have even poorer incentives than subsidized private ones (which again, this is not), they're only acceptable when the private sector alone will absolutely never provide that service under competi…

I don't think you got what I'm saying. I mean that when you simply give money to people where there may not be efficient markets for some needed good (which you wanted the money spent on), private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices and not actually provide more of the service desired.

> private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices

When this happens, it's because there are unrelated supply constraints, usually resulting from misguided government intervention. The healthcare sector is a good example in the U.S.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#82

Post by dado3212 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #61
sofixa wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've made a real mess in some third world countries with the cash spigot. Has there been a comparable scenario of direct cash transfers to poor people?

GiveDirectly has studied this, and it's absolutely not making a "mess". What makes a mess is foreign aid directed at corrupt, large-scale, government- or NGO-driven "development" schemes. Giving cash just leaves the choice as to how to use the money to those who are best equipped to make it.

I agree with the former (GiveDirectly and other institutions like J-PAL have been huge in putting together randomized trials around aid effectiveness, [1] for a specific example). The latter I think is more up for debate. There are papers showing that aid is still effective in areas with high government corruption. Definitely a pretty debated area though in terms of effectiveness of foreign aid.

[1]. https://www.povertyactionlab.org/case-study/giving-directly-...

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#83

Post by troupe »

zaroth wrote: post #40
davmar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the capitalist mindset you described were accurate, then we would have the kind of society you described because we’ve had a very capitalist economy from the start. But that’s not what we see, so unfortunately what you assert cannot be true. However, you’re right that we live in capitalism. And it creates child poverty.

That [some] child poverty exists in a capitalist society does not mean that capitalism creates child poverty.

If we kept the threshold for poverty at the same threshold it was 200 years ago, we'd probably say that capitalism reduces poverty. But as the standard of living moves upward, the threshold for poverty moves up too.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#84

Post by zozbot234 »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #79

Why not just give everyone equally? Why just give to the people earning less than $35000. I know the answer, no need to reply to me. Regardless. Give everyone equally.

It's a wash. If you "give the money to everyone equally", you'll just be clawing it right back by raising taxes on higher-income folks. Theory suggests that you'll want to phase out the aid quite aggressively as income increases (though not by anything near 100%) because this is where the tightest constraints on spending are no longer binding, so the potential benefit is not that worthwhile.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#85

Post by heavyset_go »

RALaBarge wrote: post #32
kevin__ wrote: post #27

The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.

They don’t actually believe it though - they get paid either directly or indirectly by the rich they are giving tax breaks to.

Many of politicians are significant asset owners, and asset owners' interests typically align with those whose absurd wealth is derived from asset ownership.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#86

Post by zozbot234 »

supernova87a wrote: post #74
throwaway6734 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. Why? We do it with social security and that seems like a well liked program. Individuals are generally pretty good at deciding what they need

I commented in reply also above. Giving money to people who are reasonably well equipped to spend it on things that there are mature and reasonably efficient markets for is fine. No one has trouble finding groceries and standard items needed for living with their SS checks. When you give money to people to spend on say, childcare, and there is not the built up social / labor infrastructure to do it, private enterpris…

You're worried that nannies will be jacking up prices for their services, and that this will not help develop sufficient "infrastructure"? Doesn't seem all that realistic.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#87

Post by toofy »

refurb wrote: post #77
wonderwonder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2008 bank bailout cost 700 billion. Almost all of that money went to rich banks and bankers. The child tax credit costs ~100 billion a year. The payments cut monthly child poverty by roughly 30%. We have direct evidence that growing up in poverty dramatically reduces your odds of graduating high school, going to college or getting a well paying job later in life. So I would posit that pulling kids out of poverty…

The $700B in bank bailouts were paid back and the government profited.

Sure, and most of the covid relief money the poors spent went back into the economy.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#88

Post by throwaway98211 »

kevin__ wrote: post #73
ip26 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are straw-man'ing a bit. Of course giving people money results in them having more money. News at 11. But it's reasonable to question whether that's a good solution, a band-aid, or perhaps a short-term hack with future blowback, etc. Direct cash transfers are not exactly some foolproof, no-brainer solution to poverty. We've made a real mess in some third world countries with the cash spigot.

The thing is, we have actual data on a lot of these policies. And we know what works and doesn't work. 1 dollar spent on increasing food stamps increases GDP by something like $1.75. For something like an expanded child tax credit, it's more like $1.25. And for tax cuts for top earners, it's around $0.30. Even just looking at it from a purely economic standpoint, one policy is drastically better than the other. But m…

>The thing is, we have actual data on a lot of these policies. And we know what works and doesn't work.

Can you cite the 'actual data' -- has it held up to broad peer review? Can you provide examples of critique of these policies, and explain why detractors have concerns, and how we could address them?

This isn't global warming (science is clear) -- social policy is inherently messy, with lots of tradeoffs, and is hard to prove empirically. There are lots of reasons why expanding the welfare state might be beneficial for society, but please stop with the moral grandstanding -- it does nothing to further real dialogue.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#89

Post by medvezhenok »

zozbot234 wrote: post #84
mrkentutbabi wrote: post #79

Why not just give everyone equally? Why just give to the people earning less than $35000. I know the answer, no need to reply to me. Regardless. Give everyone equally.

It's a wash. If you "give the money to everyone equally", you'll just be clawing it right back by raising taxes on higher-income folks. Theory suggests that you'll want to phase out the aid quite aggressively as income increases (though not by anything near 100%) because this is where the tightest constraints on spending are no longer binding, so the potential benefit is not that worthwhile.

The result is the same but the details matter.

One is having to prove you are under threshold (documentation, paperwork etc) - the other, everyone gets it, so much less overhead for the poor (the overhead is on the side of the people who can afford it - the VAT tax or whatever is on the other side)

It’s about who has to deal with the paperwork

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#90

Post by supernova87a »

zozbot234 wrote: post #86
supernova87a wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commented in reply also above. Giving money to people who are reasonably well equipped to spend it on things that there are mature and reasonably efficient markets for is fine. No one has trouble finding groceries and standard items needed for living with their SS checks. When you give money to people to spend on say, childcare, and there is not the built up social / labor infrastructure to do it, private enterpris…

You're worried that nannies will be jacking up prices for their services, and that this will not help develop sufficient "infrastructure"? Doesn't seem all that realistic.

Private equity owned childcare centers. I don't think it's implausible at all.
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