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In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

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Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#461

Post by int_19h »

echelon wrote: post #148
TylerE wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should act with empathy and care for each other. The government does not need to be run like a fucking business.

It's because it runs like a business that we're able to enjoy a high standard of living. If the economy stops growing, or worse, degrades, everyone will suffer incredibly. Job loss, investment loss, higher cost of living. There's a wide gulf between childcare for none and childcare for all. I'm an atheist, but some of the cheapest childcare is at churches. Orders of magnitude cheaper than private childcare because th…

The economy will stop growing eventually. Nothing grows forever. If we have built our society around the notion of perpetual economic growth, we have already accepted that "everyone will suffer incredibly", and we're only arguing about which generation will be the one to bear it.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#462

Post by int_19h »

abustamam wrote: post #254
tock wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then do it today so mothers can continue to work and help the economy.

I'd argue that that's the wrong goal. Ideally, families can afford to live off of one salary so that mothers could choose to continue to care for their children if they wanted to do so. Currently, very few families are privileged enough to live off of one salary. Both parents need to work in order to make ends meet. I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve, or that free childcare isn't a good interim solution. Bu…

Raising children is basically a full time job. Why not compensate it as such?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#463

Post by int_19h »

petcat wrote: post #169
bparsons wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the big reason other countries have free or cheap childcare. People who have kids want to continue earning money, and people who earn money want to have kids. It can be easily justified using only an economic productivity argument.

Very few other countries have free childcare. In Europe I'm only aware of Slovenia and a couple others. Canada doesn't have anything close to the universal system that's in New Mexico.

Russia and some other ex-Soviet states have it, as a leftover of the Soviet system. But it persists because people find it essential.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#464

Post by int_19h »

Aurornis wrote: post #87
macintux wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people would start businesses if we had UBI and free health care as a safety net.

Several of the UBI pilot studies included new venture creation (including solo self-employment, not just classic business creation) as part of their measurements. The last few I looked at had zero difference in new business creation between recipients and control group. A lot of the UBI trials have actually had disappointing results. The arguments usually claim that it’s not a valid test because it wasn’t guaranteed…

I actually did the math for US once, calculating how much more tax it would take to give everyone minimum wage. The resulting tax rate would certainly be fairly high, but not excessively so; several European countries have higher brackets today, and their economy doesn't collapse.

But also, are you accounting for all the means-tested welfare that such a program would replace?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#465

Post by int_19h »

vidarh wrote: post #225
Aurornis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several of the UBI pilot studies included new venture creation (including solo self-employment, not just classic business creation) as part of their measurements. The last few I looked at had zero difference in new business creation between recipients and control group. A lot of the UBI trials have actually had disappointing results. The arguments usually claim that it’s not a valid test because it wasn’t guaranteed…

The "classical" UBI argument from a liberal point of view (classical liberal, not US liberal) has typically been that UBI would lower the complexity and by extension cost of welfare by removing the needs to means-test. In Europe, UBI was typically more likely to be pushed by (by our standards) centre-right parties. For this reason, UBI traditionally was seen negatively by the left, who saw it as a means of removing n…

FWIW I'm far left and in favor of UBI, but one thing to keep in mind is that while it's a simple concept, details (i.e. amounts paid and amounts taxed) matter a lot. There's no reason why UBI can't be redistributive if one desires it to be so - you just use more progressive taxes to fund it.

And, of course, reducing the complexity and cost of welfare ought to be a left wing talking point as well! Again, it depends on what you do with the savings - sure, it can just be taken and used elsewhere, or you could maintain the spending but raise the bar on how much UBI provides.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#466

Post by int_19h »

WalterBright wrote: post #412
jjk166 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Approximately 25,000 americans gave their lives in the revolutionary war. Every signer of the declaration of independence was signing their own death warrant should they have lost to the strongest military in the world. This country was 100% founded on community sacrifice.

The price of freedom is always paid in blood. > This country was 100% founded on community sacrifice. I recommend reading the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and if you really want to get into it, the Federalist Papers. I don't recall any of that advocating free food for all, UBI, free healthcare, etc.

What do you think patriotism is, if not "community sacrifice"?

GP's point is that you are playing fast and loose with words here, so much so that your point doesn't make sense. "Community sacrifice" is a much broader category than those few policies you dislike.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#467

Post by int_19h »

EasyMark wrote: post #398
jameslk wrote: post #143

It’s good that it’s a state policy, not a federal one. We need more policies to stay at the state level, regardless of the policy. Federalism is how we can test the effects of competing policies under the same house. If the policy is a problem for you, it’s a lot easier to vote with your feet and move to a different state than to move to a different country

For something like this as a first pass, for sure, but if it can be shown to be "realistic" then I have no problem with the Feds enacting it. I especially feel that we need a single-payer option for health insurance. We're the only major "wealthy" nation with a completely regressive health care policy that punishes people for being poor to the point we just let them die if the $ aren't flowing

We need a public healthcare system, but whether it should be single payer is not readily evident, and I rather suspect that clinging to that particular model is what's causing progressives to get stuck trying to push it through. It's probably because most people in US immediately think of Canada when they think of socialized healthcare, and there's very little awareness of what other countries do on either left or right, so we're essentially perpetually debating the Canadian model. We should look at Europe instead and pick something that's both proven to work and more agreeable with American sensibilities. German, perhaps.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#468

Post by runako »

bluecalm wrote: post #260
runako wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data on UBI isn't out there, but it is notable that countries with similar tax rates to the US manage to have universal healthcare and more expansive safety nets. Some examples: New Zealand (tax rate ~30% less than the US), Korea, Switzerland, Australia, UK, Japan, Netherlands, Norway. Americans really should be asking why we're paying a significantly higher tax burden than New Zealand and not getting similar ser…

Switzerland has mandatory healthcare insurance and subsidies for low income earners. The insurance is provided by private companies. It's not really universal healthcare system like in most EU countries. Private insurance can work out fine if regulated well. In USA you have regulatory capture that makes services expensive. Impossible barriers to entry coupled with terrible regulation on price transparency and a lot o…

I included the Swiss example exactly for this reason, to show that it's not 100% about the delivery model.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#469

Post by int_19h »

Aloisius wrote: post #426
sleight42 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Vote with your feet" is a privileged assertion

Are immigrants privileged then?

Speaking as an immigrant: yes, absolutely! Legal immigrants generally have to be quite privileged in their place of origin to have the education level necessary to clear the bar in most places to be considered for any kind of visa that allows permanent residency, and to be financially well off enough to afford both the paperwork and the move itself.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#470

Post by int_19h »

jameslk wrote: post #307
nkrisc wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some things, yes. I think this sort of thing is compatible with being legislated at the state level. Other policies are not. See states with strict gun laws being undermined by neighboring states with very loose laws.

To me that seems like a necessary trade off for the benefits gained. The stricter laws wouldn’t have necessarily been achieved nor maintained had they not been enacted at the state level. What does seem like something the federal government should be doing is mediating issues like this between states, without picking a side (of course, that is easier said than done given polarization in politics currently). Rather th…

The churn is largely an artifact of our electoral system IMO. If party seats followed national votes proportionally, the change would be far more gradual without the swings.

Of course, it's also not going to happen because proportional popular vote will strongly favor one party...

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