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Voluntary charity is a blessing.
Compulsory charity is a curse.
Government "taking" from one to "give" to another, under threat, duress, and/or coercion isn't voluntary charity.
I suppose this depends on which end of the economic spectrum you all....
Well....after seeing this topic grow......its the same old story. What people really want is DEBATE....and not ANSWERS. What you will find is that answers are ignored to preserve debate and to maintain preexisting beliefs. Institutions have done studies to answer such questions, but institutional findings and research gets ignored in favor of personal opinions....which can always be debated and challenged.
Here is the thing. In a country of 300 million people, none of our experiences can be used to draw conclusions about the whole or big picture. We cannot see for forest for the trees. You cannot look at the trees around you and then make a claim about the forest as a whole.....yet....that is what most people do. One has to look at history and research to gather the big picture and not fall victim to the fallacy of composition nor the fallacy of division.
These forums are for entertainment.....not education.
Emotional, baseless nonsense. Everyone is supposed to have insurance, or pay a stiff penalty if they don't. That penalty goes back into the ACA to underwrite the costs associated with those without insurance. Show me where people in the U.S. have been refused care and died.
There is no penalty under a certain income level if you don't have insurance. Penalty has been done away with anyway.
Also, GDP (PPP), income levels of the US vs Europe, etc. doesn't really say anything. What matters in the long run are two things: (1) income inequality, (2) the distribution of benefits resulting in the rise in GDP, (3) ease of access to low-cost education opportunities for skills, training, and higher education.
Sometimes the Feds DO need to intervene, as they are way ahead of the curve on some issues than a lot of states are. Civil Rights racial and orientation minorities is the most dramatic example, but environmental issues also are another important example. If State A enacts more "regulations that cost money and tax dollars" but State B doesn't, but State A gets better results or otherwise a higher quality of life because of those "regulations", then the Feds will look to them as a role model about how to improve the quality of life of all Americans. Thus local standards don't automatically mean the right standards.
Part of having personal responsibility - with whom small government promoters have considerable overlap with - is looking to the best practices of states that have strong quality of life (low poverty, low pollution, low crime, low police brutality, tax and regulatory and education policies that produce numerous high-paying jobs, etc).
So if some states fall way behind the curve while the Feds are ahead of it, then perhaps the Feds need to intervene after all - even if it means its citizens or government do confuse freedom with "doing whatever the hell with my money and life that I want", and even if the Feds new "rules and regulations" do clash with local definitions of "(ab)normal behavior" or "(dis)respect-worthy person".
As far as individuals welfare, that is your opinion. I would add that the fed is doing more damage than good. The very idea that near 50 million are starving in this country is preposterous. It is more likely that the fed is indirectly funding the drug wars in the inner cities.
Americans are brainwashed and believe strange things, generally.
The masses are brainwashed no matter where you live.
The US was founded with the intent to be different than the rest of the world. They wanted maximum individual liberty - freedom of choice over security. They didn't want to be controlled and regulated, even if that meant they took on more responsibility for themselves.
That's the main difference, although the US has slowly become like everyone else over time.
A large portion of Americans seem to be against social programs even though it may be for the common good. When there is talk of the (on average) much better social programs in many European countries the general response is "well, they have to spend more on taxes". To which I ask.....so? If it meant far better health care, far better maternity leave, etc. isn't that worth it? Do not the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one?
1) Genuine ignorance. You cannot underestimate the stupidity of the average person, American or otherwise. This includes people on Medicare and Social Security who do not know that those are federal programs.
2) Racism. "This should only go to the /right people/--"
They get to decide who the right people are.
3) Religious extremism. "Under the /right circumstances/--"
This is an American classic: claim extreme religious beliefs, scream about them being violated, claim you are being discriminated against.
4) Extreme racism. "So that none of those goddamn (black, brown, Hispanic, non-brown-but-mistaken-by-Americans-for-being-Mexican, Mexicans, legal Mexican immigrants, anyone who doesn't look like me) get it."
Many Americans would genuinely live in the acid-drenched effluvia of industrial runoff beneath waste pipes if they thought other people wouldn't even get pipes over their heads.
5) Short-sighted hatred born by inability to feel empathy. "Because only I deserve it."
America is too diverse a nation to ensure that things like welfare programs only benefit the white Christian population. Welfare for anyone else is a "hand out"; welfare for them is a "hand up".
So nobody should have it, because it might benefit a colored person.
But look at how many people would have started spending more money on goods and services, once they have more extra money available to do so, and how that would have jump started the economy, so much more than the money that went into the bank vaults and stayed there.
What makes you think the money "stayed there?" Did retirees suddenly stop getting their pension checks? No.
And any supposed "bank vault" is a figment of your imagination. If anything, banks are in the red due to the fact that they do fractional reserve lending.
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