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Then FDR was elected and instituted policies that created a strong middle-class.
Correlation does not equal causation. FDR's policies actually prolonged the depression by 7 years. How did a prolonged depression work out for the middle class?
You write like we never were here before but we have. During the early part of the 20th Century, we had the income inequality similar to today.
Then FDR was elected and instituted policies that created a strong middle-class. These included laws that help unions, a minimum wage, a social safety net and high taxes on wealth. What happened? We had a huge growth in an educated middle-class that was able to out produce other nations. We didn't find that the poor wanted to remain poor or that public programs make people lazy.
Since then, the U.S. has focused greatly on reducing taxes on the wealthy. What was the result? Far less job growth and less economic growth but more inequality.
As for social programs, according to some fascinating economic research, Is Employer-Based Health Insurance A Barrier To Entrepreneurship?, there's an unexpectedly large numbers of Americans becoming entrepreneurs within months of qualifying for Medicare (over and above those you would expect to become entrepreneurs because they were fired, forcibly retired, etc.) The reason: They now have the security of healthcare, so they can take the risk of starting private companies.
Sure there is. More food stamps even when children are already fed at head start day care, etc., better housing benefits including the fact that the more children you have the higher you jump on the Section 8 waiting list if you don't already have Section 8, etc., etc. Single moms with kids get those benefits while a single person doesn't.
Have you ever been poor? Ever had to live on government assistance?
It is not some glamourous lifestyle that anyone should envy. It is certainly not anything that anyone aspires to unless they are complete losers.
The SOLUTION is for business to start hiring IN AMERICA, and to start paying DECENT WAGES they way they USED to decades ago before "Greed is Good" and "Screw the Employee" became the mantra.
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Originally Posted by Informed Consent
Education is ONE of the correlations, yes. We can thank our country's liberal-controlled public school system for that.
And, LOL... have you no historical frame of reference, at all? You want to take a gander at the birthrates in this country in the 1700s, 1800s, early 1900s vs. today?
Want to also "thank liberals" for something? Womens rights, birth and reproductive rights.... all things that have kept countless millions more "poor" from ever being born.
The fact is this country was RIPE for a real socialist revolution back in the early 1900s. Thank YOUR lucky stars that sensible welfare programs were put in existence back then by men of means who had something that TODAY'S conservative lacks: Foresight.
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Originally Posted by Informed Consent
Welfare isn't just TANF. For example, Medicaid is welfare. There are many others ranging from free cell phones to welfare to pay utility bills.
Medicaid is essentially for children and disabled.
If our health system wasn't such crap we wouldn't have to worry about that.
The cell phone program is stupidity, but a drop in the bucket.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
That's flawed. They include Social Security and Medicare in those figures. Social Security and Medicare aren't welfare. They're INSURANCE programs for which one is required to pay premiums, almost always for decades before one even begins to collect any benefits. Everyone but the low-income actually LOSES money on Social Security.Social Security a LOSING deal for most workers - AP News
Why do you dishonestly conflate Social Security and Medicare with means-tested welfare spending programs?
In the end, why on earth are you whining so much?
The wealthy in this country are doing better than ever, even with the so-called expansion of the socialist commie pinko libbbberual state.
They are seeing gains in income and assets at exponential rates, while the middle class is stagnant or snails pace growth. If you aren't part of that, may I suggest you work harder so that you finally get to the point where you really won't give a damn whether your tax rate is 37% or 40% because really, you won't feel it. Besides, it's simply gauche to be so obsessed over taxes.
Correlation does not equal causation. FDR's policies actually prolonged the depression by 7 years. How did a prolonged depression work out for the middle class?
You guys on the right just repeat the same talking points, even when they have been refuted. The study that you cite has been discredited and debunked.
35 years of a right wing assault on progressive tax policy, and crafting legislation to reduce the power of unions has led to the biggest income gaps in the Western World. One party, the GOP, has led the effort to do that.
And things will continue to get worse until these old folks pass away, and their kids, just can no longer pretend that this right wing ideology, is doing them any favors.
meanwhile the income gaps are increasing worldwide
that's, worldwide, to include some of the "more socialistic" countries
Have you ever been poor? Ever had to live on government assistance?
It is not some glamourous lifestyle that anyone should envy.
It's certainly easier than having to actually support oneself and one's children.
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And, LOL... have you no historical frame of reference, at all? You want to take a gander at the birthrates in this country in the 1700s, 1800s, early 1900s vs. today?
Sure. Take a look at the infant mortality rates and life expectancy for those time periods, as well.
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Thank YOUR lucky stars that sensible welfare programs were put in existence back then by men of means who had something that TODAY'S conservative lacks: Foresight.
How's that "foresight" working out for the children and their future?
With the 3 times higher birthrate of the welfare-dependent class, the 18 and under age group having the highest percentage of those living in poverty, and the 5 times higher likelihood that poor students will drop out of school, we're on a crash course with the inevitability of an increasingly insupportable, exponentially growing welfare-dependent class. What's your plan for when the welfare-dependent class eclipses our society's ability to financially support them?
Nope. Already posted the charts that prove they don't. Almost everyone pays, and the tax system is REgressive. That incentivizes achievement and success instead of penalizing it like we do here.
Those charts you keep referencing are meaningless when presented out of context with how these countries with lower gini coefficients spend their money. Yes, the earned income tax structure has less of a range to accommodate for income and they have a VAT on most non-essential consumer goods, but they also have spending policies that are far more progressive than in the United States. Paying a VAT and 35% of your income in taxes is not a major burden when your healthcare costs, daycare, paid vacations, etc... are covered. If anything higher rates and more progressive social spending allows everyone to put into the system, something that is always being bemoaned by "conservatives" around here.
Also, I'd hardly call capital gains taxes that range anywhere from equal to earned income to 30% and up as "regressive."
You guys on the right just repeat the same talking points, even when they have been refuted. The study that you cite has been discredited and debunked.
Nothing in the UCLA findings was debunked in that post.
To wit:
"The economy did not tank in 1937 because government spending declined. Increases in tax rates, particularly capital income tax rates, and the expansion of unions, were most likely responsible. Unfortunately, these same factors pose a similar threat today."
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