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Short answer is not to think there will ever be a day when we don't have poor people and/or rich people, but there is what can be done to help limit the disparities of opportunity between those born disadvantaged vs those born with advantage.
A quick peek at another thread about Warren's proposed free child care immediately caused me to think people will either be for or against depending on whether they believe this effort to limit the above referenced disparities is appropriate for any society to work toward. Needless to say, better access to affordable child care, health care, education, nutritious foods and a safe environment - for as many people as possible -- rich or poor is how we best better provide opportunity for those born disadvantaged.
Some complain about all this "free stuff," as if there is no cost to America that comes from poverty. Do the math with respect to the cost of drugs, crime, poor health and all the rest compared to providing better access to all that helps mitigate the cost of poverty in America, and only then can you come to a better conclusion about how our tax dollars are best spent. Then too the question of who further up the economic ladder should pay what rate of taxes to support these efforts along with all the rest our government is more than happy to spend money on.
Far as you are concerned, should we bother with what I note in bold above? Why or why not?
Answer tends to determine whether you understand where people like Warren, Sanders, Newsom and other more progressive type thinkers are coming from...
Gov. Newsom proposing to expand services for babies and toddlers
[quote=LearnMe;54496051]Short answer is not to think there will ever be a day when we don't have poor people and/or rich people, but there is what can be done to help limit the disparities of opportunity between those born disadvantaged vs those born with advantage.
Is this a thinly veiled argument for a wealth tax? That's what the above comment seems to suggest. Scratch egalitarianism and you find Marxism just under the surface.
Disparities in opportunities are not a societal problem. They are an individual issue. I grew up dirt poor, but I unknowingly nurtured the seed of opportunity by taking school seriously, not running afoul of the law, and not getting mixed up with drugs. I made mistake after mistake but I could always regroup and rebound because I employed that template of essential behaviors throughout my early years. It seems that the left today eschews personal accountability in favor of blaming every external factor under the sun for a person's unfavorable life outcome. I recently read that significant portions of graduating classes of DC high schools cannot read at a functional level. What kind of opportunities are these young people going to have? Why were they passed in the first place? Weren't the parent/s aware that their child was in eighth grade and could barely read? Unfortunately, These educational outcomes continue the cycle of generational poverty.
I will never support equalizing life outcomes via taxation because it's not fair to make one person pay for another's poor choices. Want to increase opportunity? Make sure kids value the behaviors that prepare the environment for opportunity to arise.
The wealthy have too many loopholes and systems in place favored to them that they've taken advantage to become that way. Most aren't that way from themselves--anything they've done to end up that way someone else has done 10 fold and isn't wealthy. Many inherit wealth, many are as lazy as anyone else might be, but received special favor and the "system" helped them, too. The right person at the right moment and 100 other things to aide them. No one gets anywhere without help.
I don't admire wealthy people at all. Just because you have money you're special? If that's all you've got, that's one empty, shallow person if you ask me.
There are several countries with smaller wealth disparities, and everyone there is poor as dirt.
One thing though, as the saying goes, the middle class is what keeps the poor from the necks of the rich. If there is no or perceived no upward mobility into at least the middle class, the poor will ultimately win out, even if that means cutting their own throat doing it, history has show this time after time.
Because large gaps like this in a society cause it to spend money in inefficient ways. They cause the society to expand slower then it otherwise would, and eventually countries with big gaps like this have social problems as well. Your last paragraph captures that issue.
The economic issue though is also big, if a tiny % has all the wealth, the rest of the people involved do not focus on developing new things, or taking a risk in starting a business. Theyre too busy trying to just survive. And risk taking? Nope.
There are too many high school dropouts in the bottom 20% of American society. And too many illegal aliens with a fifth-grade level education.
Something needs to be done about this.
^^^^This
We need to stop importing poverty. Right now we have plenty of American citizens who are poor and need some help. Yet, both sides of the aisle refuse to get serious about preventing hordes of functionally illiterate, low IQ illegal aliens from coming here. And, once they're here and drop an anchor baby, they bleed us dry.
It's long past time to get rid of the millions of illegals and put a stop to any who try to sneak in here. It's also long past time to change our immigration laws to keep from being flooded with poor, unskilled people.
These issues^^^^have made the problem of poverty even worse. Illegals have both depressed wages for unskilled work and displaced Americans in those jobs. This makes poverty even worse and also makes it harder for those who are motivated to change their lives for the better.
While these steps will alleviate poverty, poverty will never be totally eliminated. As long as there are people who make poor choices like having children they know they can't support, then there will still be people living in poverty.
The best we can do is to stop making things worse than they currently are.
Wealth isn't a pie. I don't have less because you have more.
Revolution .... is a fever dream usually espoused by those who want to overthrow capitalism.
You can wax poetic about revolutions but the fact is when enough people get p'd off, they tend to take matters into their own hands.
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