Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
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Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#2It seems very suspect to base anything on what happened during the pandemic. Even though no time is normal, those times were more abnormal than most
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#3>Instead, he proposed a “work bonus” plan that passed as the EITC in 1975, the first program to exclude the poorest Americans from government assistance by phasing in benefits alongside earned income.
EITC was not initially designed as welfare, rather it was "supposed to be a temporary refundable tax credit for lower-income workers to offset the Social Security payroll tax and rising food and energy prices."[0]
TFA misses the blindingly obvious "wrong way" of providing income to poverty-level residents, which is to implement it via the income tax system. This unfairly burdens the IRS with enforcement of rules that actually have little to do with income tax, and leads to such things as accusations of racist audits when in fact an EITC audit is a very different thing from, say, an audit of business income and expenses (an EITC audit usually has more to do with eligibility of, and who gets to claim, dependents).[1]
[0]https://www.epi.org/publication/ib370-earned-income-tax-cred...
[1]It is true that some taxpayers try to cheat on self-employment (business) income to maximize their EITC (either by over-reporting or under-reporting net profit), but does not apply to wage earners.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#4> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education).
This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resources, they by and large use them to better their circumstances.
In other news, rain is wet and the sun will still be shining tomorrow.
So much of this is so clearly and evidentially and objectively based on the sheer, raging, burning hatred this country has for poor people. We will let a hundred struggling families starve if it means preventing one lazy bastard from getting food he didn't "earn."
Until we are ready to reckon with this pathological hatred of people who simply have less than us, we will never move forward as a society. The war on Poverty has nothing to do with fucking poverty, it is a war on poor people and it's the only one we've won lately.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#5>Instead, he proposed a “work bonus” plan that passed as the EITC in 1975, the first program to exclude the poorest Americans from government assistance by phasing in benefits alongside earned income. EITC was not initially designed as welfare, rather it was "supposed to be a temporary refundable tax credit for lower-income workers to offset the Social Security payroll tax and rising food and energy prices."[0] TFA m…
And all that's not even going into things like the pandemic business loans that were handed out like fucking candy, many to businesses that barely even existed at the time, to the tune of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, most of which were entirely forgiven after the fact.
But that's not socialism of course, that's not "financing bad decisions" and those people definitely 100% used all that money in their businesses and not for frivolous and unnecessary luxuries, so that's fine.
The hypocrisy in all these issues is absolutely mind-boggling. If you're rich, getting free money from the Government is just business as usual. If you're not, it's the worst thing in human history and you deserve to die.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#6We're not fighting poverty, we're fighting poor people!
Which is a very expensive war, so it might be cheaper to give some of that money to the poor people, so they can spend it more effectively.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#7> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…
Yep, this boomer and silent gerontocracy is why we ended up with the biggest wealth transfer FROM younger generations to them.
It's also how we got DARE garbage, of bandying around drugs to 6th graders and saying "doooont useeee theseeee", combined with lies like 'smoking a marijuanas will lead to your death!". (Massive kudos to Erowid, for debunking so much of these lies.)
But it's unsurprising the biggest gerontocratic welfare program has old fucks with antiquated and completely garbage views of humans.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#8> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…
Sorry to disagree, but I don't think it is hatred and it is not a war.
I think it is indifference mixed with selfishness and a collection of many little or perhaps not so little power grabs. One example might be that poor people can't rent a flat somewhere they can have a good life, because everybody else is already there and this is expressed in a rent poor people can't afford.
Another little power grab: Call a taxi when it is raining heavily, and you beckon strongly and the taxi is stopping for you and not for the handicapped woman because the taxi driver saw you first. When you are already sitting you suddenly see the woman outside and you realize that she needs the taxi more than you. It is sort of an effort to get out and tell the taxi driver that she was first. It is easier for you to just drive away.
It is war if people expressly try to hurt poor people. But I just don't think that the majority of well-off people are this evil. They are mostly indifferent, selfish and enjoy the benefits of the power grabs they do.
This said, I agree with you that many people in the USA are strongly indifferent and selfish and they justify this with saying that they live in a meritocracy and that everybody had the same chance to be successful, and if a poor person is not successful it's their own fault. But that's not hatred nor a war.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#9> Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Party’s effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). This just in: when you give people who chronically lack resources some resourc…
In the USA (and UK) if you are poor you are considered a LOSER! Society in these two cultures is all about Winners and LOSERS. If you are not rich you are a LOSER. A LOSER is a pariah. Everybody loves Winners and hates Losers. If the game is rigged, then you lost because you didn't figure out how to manipulate it for your benefit. That makes you a loser.
This belief or philosophy or religion is also known as "Survival of the Fittest". Its a cult.
Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional
#10[deleted]