Assumptions of "handouts to poor people."

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by Stonebolt, Mar 18, 2012.

  1. Stonebolt

    Stonebolt New Member

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    I've noticed a pattern. Many voters are angry whenever any sort of tax increases are proposed, which is normal and understandable. But I feel really irritated whenever I hear that they're complaining of that money going to "handouts to poor people." I mean, "handouts to poor people" are one of only dozens of uses for public funding. Taxes can be used to pay off debts, strengthen the military, increase scientific research, perform routine maintenance (that might actually save money in the long run if you do it now)...

    I could literally sit here for half an hour and spend the whole time listing more things that public funding does. That's why it makes me mad when people assume they know why a tax increase is happening. Why do people assume that tax increases are for more "handouts to poor people."
     
  2. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Its encouraged by the automatic stabilisation offered by welfare payments (i.e. as the economy stalls the payments naturally increase and provide a demand stabilisation)
     
  3. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    What portion of the federal budget is SSI / Medicare / Medicaid / Welfare? ("But, we contributed to SSI & Medicare", not to the level you will draw from it, Medicare collects $1 for every $3 it spends).

    What percentage of the budget are the other thing public funding does?
     
  4. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    A great deal of money and effort have been devoted to preventing them from knowing the fact that government handouts to rich people are an order of magnitude larger than the handouts to poor people, while the rich recipients of government handouts are an order of magnitude fewer than the poor ones.
     
  5. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    The purpose of tax increases is to give politicians more money to spend. We have allowed them to believe that their political power rests in their ability to spend our money. I have no idea why we've done that. But we deserve what we're getting.
     
  6. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    That is because those rich people give some of that money back, above board, and under the table.
     
  7. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Some where along the line our public servants became our leaders.

    To get elected, politicians promise the impossible. That has been going on so long that we now demand they do it, no matter the cost to our freedom, or to our children.

    The two party system provides a scapegoat for their failure.
     
  8. Alif Qadr

    Alif Qadr Banned

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    Stonebolt, what I see is a diversionary tactic. What I see is that those who often use such tactics are engaging in hiding or covering up the massive expenditures on Corporate R&D (including medical and other sciences), Military (not to soldiers but contractors), agriculture (small farms and agribusiness alike), foreign aid, etc. Let us NOT forget the Population Control efforts (NSSM 200) AFDC, WIC, Section Eight Housing, HUD (which includes many middleclass projects), Foodstamps budget are miniscule to the other funded industries that receive grants and other types of funding.
     
  9. Alif Qadr

    Alif Qadr Banned

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    HEAR HEAR RoyL!
     
  10. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    They are anything but leaders. If we pay attention to what politicians say then we still get what we deserve.
     
  11. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    Yes, I estimate the average return on investment for bribing politicians is at least 10,000%. The people who study corruption always remark at how little money it takes to buy such enormously valuable favors.
     
  12. hiimjered

    hiimjered Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The vast majority of the "handouts" for the rich that libs complain about are tax credits. If those count as handouts the money the poor collects in handouts is still much larger than the amount that the rich receive.

    How much money goes toward the EITC, the Making Work Pay credit, the various education credits, savings credits, etc - most of which the rich aren't even eligible for?
     
  13. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    That was true when government was small. But now, the size the federal government government passed the tipping point.

    If they want to aid a union, like the UAW, bankruptcy rules are ignored.

    They want to punish a company (for not "contributing" to their campaign), they tie them up in court.

    They want to punish an individual, there is always the IRS, and soon Obamacare (you got to buy this insurances, and we aren't going to cover that procedure).
     
  14. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    I don't know about "libs," but tax credits are not the vast majority of the handouts to the rich. The handouts are the privileges -- titles to land and other natural resources, corporate limited liability, IP monopolies, broadcast spectrum allocations, private bank charters that enable them to create money, etc. -- that enable the rich to obtain so much wealth and income without making any commensurate contribution to production.
    Garbage. The poor don't own the kind of privileges that enable the rich to pocket a large fraction of GDP in return for nothing. The handouts to the rich all happen BEFORE they get any tax credits. The difference between tax credits for the rich and tax credits for the poor is that tax credits for the poor enable them to keep some of the money they rightfully earned, while tax credits for the rich enable them to keep money government gave them through the unjust advantage of privilege.
    That's almost all money the poor EARNED. The handouts to the rich consist of all the wealth and income they DIDN'T earn. Not taxing it simply solidifies the injustice of giving it to them in the first place.
     
  15. hiimjered

    hiimjered Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Those privileges you mention are mostly things that don't come from the government or that come equally to any citizen. Many citizens have property titles and none are handed out - they must be purchased.

    Limited corporate liability can be given to any citizen that decides to create a corporation - and anyone who does any kind of business on their own should create one. Forming a corporation is very inexpensive - many lawyers will set one up for you for about $200. This isn't a privilege exclusive to the rich and is in no way a handout.

    IP monopolies are for anyone who creates something themselves. Every artist counts on them as does every garage inventor. These also aren't exclusive to the rich, nor are they handed out by the government.

    Spectrum allocations aren't handed out, they are bid on and purchased by the people who want them.

    What you describe aren't handouts and aren't exclusive to the rich.
     
  16. geofree

    geofree Active Member

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    The privileges he mentioned all come from government and they most certainly don’t “come equally to any citizen”. If they did they would be classified as rights and not privileges.

    Titles to slave also were not handed out, they were purchased. Does the purchasing of a title to a slave make slavery any less oppressive?

    The point is that those excluded by the privilege (the ones whose natural rights are being violated) are not paid anything … that’s what makes it a handout.

    Right, because then you can transfer your risks onto society … just good business, eh. Nothing like making the taxpayers and consumers pay for your failures.
    So for about $200 you can make society eat the costs of your failure … sounds great for you, but it sucks for everyone else. In my town the taxpayers have paid millions of $$$ to clean up after a chemical company, but the stockholders of that company made millions before the hazardous pollutions were found out. Now the stockholders are rich and the taxpayers are that much poorer … and you don’t call that privilege?
    That is a flat out lie.
    William Shakespeare did just fine without IP privileges. IP monopolies (also referred to as patent thickets) are acutely an inventors worst nightmare. Luckily IP monopolies didn’t apply to computer technology when most of the inventions that make up your computer were first developed … otherwise much of the technology wouldn’t exist or would be priced out of range for most consumers.
    But they violate the rights of the excluded and they are enforced by government.
    And they take something that was free for anyone to use and made it into the private property of the privilege holder. Now everyone must pay to use what was free before the privilege was issued … a clear violation of the rights of all those now excluded. This particular privilege is how the richest man in the world gained his fortune.
    They most certainly are handouts. They are special rights which allow the holder to violate the natural rights of the excluded, and without paying compensation.
    But the rich all own or otherwise benefit from at least one of them … that ought to tell you something.
     
  17. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    When taxes go up we don't pay down the national debt. What we do is start more entitlement programs or increase the ones we have.
     
  18. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    They all come from government. You are just lying. Apologists for greed, privilege, injustice and evil always have to lie.
    That's an absurd lie.
    They are handed out by government to the privileged. Slaves also had to be purchased. That didn't mean ownership of slaves was not a privilege issued and enforced by government.
    But only makes sense for those who are planning, and have the money, to push large liabilities onto taxpayers.
    It is most certainly a handout, and it is mostly the rich who have the money to profit from it, because it takes money to buy corporate stock.
    Lie.
    You are flat-out lying. Most of the world's greatest art and literature was created without IP monopolies. Shakespeare never owned a copyright, and if copyrights had existed, he could not have written some of his plays, as he copied many plot elements from other playwrights, especially Marlowe.
    Oh, stop telling such outrageous lies. The great majority of garage inventors never even apply for a patent, as it's too expensive to get or to prosecute one. Only the rich and their corporations can afford the lawyers.
    The rich get almost all the benefit. I know, personally, a top Nortel engineer whose name is on dozens of patents and whose team designed most of the switches the Internet runs on. He and the other Nortel engineers who ACTUALLY INVENTED THE TECHNOLOGY were paid a pittance compared to the shareholders and corporate greedmeisters who got all the money. Even the stock options they were granted only vested long after top management had used their back-dated options to rip billions out of the company, crashing the stock, and ended up worthless.
    They are indisputably handed out by the government, stop lying.
    ROTFL!! Are you really unaware of the rigged spectrum auction scandal?

    http://ideas.repec.org/p/pcc/pccumd/00jre.html

    The world's richest man, Carlos Selim Helu, made most of his money through a rigged spectrum auction that gave him control of Mexico's cell phone spectrum for a song.
    They are indisputably handouts, the rich get almost all the benefit of them, and that benefit is AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE MORE THAN THE POOR EVER GET.
     

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