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Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

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Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#111

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

The increase in prices is potentially a necessary signal for improving infrastructure. I.e. prices drive competition and expended services.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#112

Post by mensetmanusman »

davmar wrote: post #106
h0l0cube wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm couching a problem in a capitalist frame, I made no assertion that we live in a perfectly capitalist economy. The irony is that China understands the economic value of quality of life better than the US, with the latter making a lot of fuss about the primacy of economy in decision making.

So you're saying that if we did live under perfect capitalism, these problems wouldn't exist. But it's impossible to live under perfect anything, so it seems that instead of trying to become more capitalist, we ought to pick the system that works best while imperfect. Today I handed out survival kits at a homeless encampment. People are cold, tired and hungry. Child poverty, homelessness....this system is not working…

China did this by becoming more capitalistic and interacting with the whole world. Many countries like India also eliminated hundreds of millions of cases of poverty, and it didn’t require forced sterilizations or a dictator.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#113

Post by mensetmanusman »

ip26 wrote: post #33
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.

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.

Actually, we made a real mess of things in other countries by attempting everything except direct cash payments.

There is really interesting history around the food rationing program from the Red Cross that actually just increased human trafficking.

It may turn out that direct cash payments are the most efficient means because then you parallelize the distribution of decisions.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#114

Post by kmos17 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #81
supernova87a wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes exactly, or sometimes it is due to regulations written to protect profits creating abnormal market conditions, like for student loans, they are backed by the government and can’t be discharged in bankruptcy and everyone is surprised tuitions have gone up so much?

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#115

Post by danaris »

pydry wrote: post #107
gruez wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well wasn't clear whether there's a logical AND or OR between the two. In case it's OR, would you say that interventions in china[1], iraq[2], Somalia[3], Kosovo[4], Cambodia[5] would be justified? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_the_Isl... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaaq_genocide [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War…

American intervention in other genocides (e.g. Kosovo) led to genocide being kicked into high gear. Arguably it did in WW2 as well. The Nazis originally planned to dump the Jews in Africa, not kill them. The plans for the Nazis industrial slaughter were approved shortly after the US entered the war and the Nazis were slowly being boxed in. The fact that Germany reacted to the US entering the war with industrial slaug…

"We should let genocides happen, because if we try to make them stop, the people committing them panic and realize they will have to speed up to be able to kill as many people as they want to" is not the gotcha argument you think it is.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#116

Post by zozbot234 »

pydry wrote: post #107
gruez wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well wasn't clear whether there's a logical AND or OR between the two. In case it's OR, would you say that interventions in china[1], iraq[2], Somalia[3], Kosovo[4], Cambodia[5] would be justified? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_the_Isl... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaaq_genocide [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War…

American intervention in other genocides (e.g. Kosovo) led to genocide being kicked into high gear. Arguably it did in WW2 as well. The Nazis originally planned to dump the Jews in Africa, not kill them. The plans for the Nazis industrial slaughter were approved shortly after the US entered the war and the Nazis were slowly being boxed in. The fact that Germany reacted to the US entering the war with industrial slaug…

This is quite wrong. To the best of our knowledge (it's hard to be sure about this, so there is some genuine controversy still) the industrial slaughter of Jews was meant to double as a convenient 'test run' for Generalplan Ost, viz. the industrial slaughter of practically everyone in the 'East' that the Nazis were then seeking to conquer as their projected 'Lebensraum'. The Nazis were far more evil than anyone would have expected knowing about the Holocaust alone.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#117

Post by seanmcdirmid »

h0l0cube wrote: post #100
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China understands the economic value of quality of life better than the US I don’t get what you mean, quality of life can be really low in China (eg no indoor heat in southern China in the winter mean the girls selling snacks at the train station are wearing jackets and gloves while still freezing), but people put up with it.

I might be naive here, but to my understanding the vast majority have access to housing and quality education in comparison to the US?

Nope, you are being naive. Compulsory education only goes through the 8th grade, so many (40-60%) don’t have a high school education, let alone a quality education (if from the rural area, your school will suck, and the hukou system means you might not be able to get an education at all in the city your family moved to to make money).

China doesn’t technically have homeless people since many of the grifters in their cities have land back home (again, because of the hukou system, your home is hard to change). However, they migrate to cities to try and not starve to death, and might wind up sleeping under an underpass (or somewhere the police can’t find them, to avoid getting beaten). A lot of people who are poor but still have money live in basement rooms (no window, would be illegal in the USA, it’s actually illegal in China as well but rule of law is not a Chinese thing), see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_tribe.

Middle class Chinese do well, but they are just a small part of a country with 1.4 billion people. Not everyone lives like they were from Shanghai.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#118

Post by bandyaboot »

votepaunchy wrote: post #110
dlp211 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is terrible, let's remember that there are 50 Republican Senators, many who profess the need for the US government to help everyday American families, who also don't support the expanded CTC.

Republicans doubled the child tax credit under Trump with no support from Democrats.

The Democrats would vote for that if it wasn’t part of a massive corporate and high income tax cut. Do you think Republicans would support the Democrats’ CTC measures if it were on its own?

The Republicans aren’t necessarily against spending for these sorts of things but only when they’re in control. Their first principle is to prevent Democratic “wins”, even if it means screwing over children.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#119

Post by dlp211 »

votepaunchy wrote: post #110
dlp211 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is terrible, let's remember that there are 50 Republican Senators, many who profess the need for the US government to help everyday American families, who also don't support the expanded CTC.

Republicans doubled the child tax credit under Trump with no support from Democrats.

They also got rid of the child exemption resulting in little change for many Americans.

Democrats also went on to further increase the size of the CTC, as well as the refundability of the CTC, and also made it available as a monthly payment.

Notice that child poverty didn't substantially drop after the Republican change, but did after the Democrats plan.

Re: Expanded Child Tax Policy Slashed Child Poverty

#120

Post by rsj_hn »

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.

I am very skeptical of this - not that we have data, but that the data suggests such a clear and simple relationship that is open to exploitation via policy. There is a long history of people trying to exploit correlations and realizing that the correlation breaks down whenever they try to turn this into a policy lever.

There is also the issue that foodstamps might be beneficial up to a point, but when you flood the system with foodstamps they are no longer beneficial and can be harmful -- there are regimes of effectiveness.

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