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There's a big difference between charity and welfare. Charities are funded through voluntary donations. Welfare is funded by mandatory tax collections (forcibly taking from someone else to give to you). If a charity forced people to donate to it, that would be called theft or extortion.
It is hard enought to keep our own fiscal houses in order and the people whose incomes are taken are made worse off, making for legitimate grounds for not supporting forced redistribution. Expecting people to make large cuts in their own standard of living (after all they work hard for it) is wrong.
I do not mean that people are not charitable, because Americans are the most charitable people in the world. What I mean is that families have budgets and supporting people who want a basic income for existing is not in those budgets.
Giving unearned money without obligation or any hope to be repaid to anybody is not moral, neither is accepting that.
It gets worse if the government put a gun on people's heads and force them to do it.
I get why the middle class would be angry, unlike the rich who can control the type of income, the middle class typically depends on W2 income but the Democrats and Progressives solution is always to raise taxes or institute redistribution policies. And who get hit? The middle class does while the rich make changes and the poor demand more. The middle class is caught in the middle paying for these liberal feel good policies.
It's rare for either the poor who generally blame outsiders giving everyone control over them and the middle class who really do try, to understand how these policies hurt them or even attempt to change their situation (discouraged), they are trapped more than they know. I was once middle, middle class but what I found out after changing course is that when you start to succeed, no matter the risks taken, no matter the amount of work, government (supported by people who don't get it) make it harder for most people to succeed, in turn keeping people trapped.
The rich already have their money (wealth), while people trying to better life but still depend on W2 income become a target of government and people who support redistribution policies like Basic Income paid for by higher taxes. That's my experience. I know for many people here, they won't have a clue what I'm talking about. Others, they'll know exactly what I am talking about.
I get why the middle class would be angry, unlike the rich who can control the type of income, the middle class typically depends on W2 income but the Democrats and Progressives solution is always to raise taxes or institute redistribution policies. And who get hit? The middle class does while the rich make changes and the poor demand more. The middle class is caught in the middle paying for these liberal feel good policies.
It's rare for either the poor who generally blame outsiders giving everyone control over them and the middle class who really do try, to understand how these policies hurt them or even attempt to change their situation (discouraged), they are trapped more than they know. I was once middle, middle class but what I found out after changing course is that when you start to succeed, no matter the risks taken, no matter the amount of work, government (supported by people who don't get it) make it harder for most people to succeed, in turn keeping people trapped.
The rich already have their money (wealth), while people trying to better life but still depend on W2 income become a target of government and people who think they should get some of the income (redistribution policies and higher taxes). That's my experience. I know for many people here, they won't have a clue what I'm talking about. Others, they'll know exactly what I am talking about.
When you push for redistribution policies like Basic Income, that money is forcibly taken from someone else through higher taxation (on W2 income) which the middle class depend on. These are called liberal feel good policies because they claim to be helping the poor (so they feel good) but at the same time they ignore that redistribution policies hurt the middle class who end up paying for it.
As I said.... I know for many people here, they won't have a clue what I'm talking about. Others, they'll know exactly what I am talking about.
When you push for redistribution policies like Basic Income, that money is forcibly taken (higher taxes) from someone else. These are called liberal feel good policies because they claim to be helping the poor (so they feel good) but reject common sense that they are hurting the middle class who end up paying for it.
As I said.... I know for many people here, they won't have a clue what I'm talking about. Others, they'll know exactly what I am talking about.
They should feel like crap taking money from others by force.
People who advocate this kind of policy should be ashamed and universally condemned.
They should feel like crap taking money from others by force.
People who advocate this kind of policy should be ashamed and universally condemned.
Democrats claim to hate big banks but this is a kicker... Distributing gov't benefits is a lucrative industry.
J.P. Morgan Chase and others are making a pretty penny charging users fees (more than half a billion dollars between 2004 - 2012). Electronic benefits delivery is such a rewarding business that banks seem to fear only two things: policy changes and bad publicity.
Banks reap hefty profits helping governments make payments got better when agencies switch to EBT cards. Operating costs of delivering benefits by EBT lower—no envelopes to stuff, or postage to pay—but electronic forms of payment allow banks multiply opportunities for revenue generation.
Banks hold contracts with federal, state, and municipal agencies to provide EBT cards and services, collect interest on federal reserve money held for government programs (though not on SNAP funds), charge transaction fees for merchant use of bank technology and infrastructure, and levy penalties on users for EBT card loss, out-of-network. Banks make money distributing government benefits if the economy is bad, because more people sign up for assistance; they make money if the economy is good, because rising interest rates mean more profit on the money they hold to distribute to beneficiaries.
This is not true in the real world. Studies show that more often than not increasing the money supply does not trigger inflation. Other factors that can, but not always, contribute to inflation include supply-demand imbalances, wages, interest rates, currency exchange rates, government debt issuance and central bank activities.
If helicopter money caused inflation then Bernanke's QE would've triggered it. It didn't.
Bernanke's QE money went to the banks and other irresponsible corporate entities like GM so they could avoid bankruptcy, hand out bonuses, and prop up their stock prices by buying back their own shares. That is not the same thing as dumping free money into the real economy. The real economy hardly saw any of that liquidity and the hilarious irony was that following the 2008 financial meltdown the banks didn't want to hand out loans to anybody in the real economy. The dollar has lost somewhere around 95% of it's purchasing power since the Federal Reserve Bank was conjured into existence in 1913. That says it all really.
Basic income would be reducing people to being zoo animals. Their basic needs would be met but their upwards mobility and usefulness in society would be diminished almost completely and they'd no long pose any threat to the status quo or the 1%'s hold on power.
If existing social service programs have undermined society and weakened the individual to a quasi person existence, this would make it far worse. Run, don't walk from this idea. if you're too stupid or ignorant to see its a danger, just ask and I'll gladly drag you away from it.
There is a real problem brewing (that has been brewing for a long time actually), that jobs of all sorts are being automated out of existence, leaving you with a larger and larger mass of people who are basically useless eaters. Its a real quandary. An ever growing nation of people with less and less available for them to do to earn themselves a living. At that point you have little choice (other than mass murder and genocide) but to put them on the dole. Hungry and irate people out in the streets spell trouble for governments...eventually the people wielding the nations weapons get tired of shooting the unwashed masses and start shooting the people giving them the orders. (Ie; they finally figure out who the real problem is.)
Bernanke's QE money went to the banks and other irresponsible corporate entities like GM so they could avoid bankruptcy, hand out bonuses, and prop up their stock prices by buying back their own shares. That is not the same thing as dumping free money into the real economy. The real economy hardly saw any of that liquidity and the hilarious irony was that following the 2008 financial meltdown the banks didn't want to hand out loans to anybody in the real economy. The dollar has lost somewhere around 95% of it's purchasing power since the Federal Reserve Bank was conjured into existence in 1913. That says it all really.
QE was a trade -- the Fed gave banks digital cash in exchange for illiquid bonds that banks had on their balance sheets. With that boost in liquidity, banks could lend money again. Most of the money in circulation today is not paper. It is digital credits and debits. Asking for and getting a new credit card is money creation. Getting a mortgage is money creation. And so yes, Bernanke's liquidity boost did trickle down into the regular economy and it increased the money supply.
Federal and State benefits already provide $6,240 in Food Stamps, $7,200 to $21,600 in rent subsidies, $6,000 to $9,000 in healthcare benefits, and $6,444 in cash, which comes to $25,884 to $43,284 in cash and non-cash benefits.
Your scheme of giving selected households $15,000 does not meet the definition of Basic Income and worse than that, it actually harms those people, since they'd be receiving less money under your bizarre program than they already receive, so they would be very angry with you.
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