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No matter how often you repeat it, it won't become true.
Read and learn:
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century
The US left-wing thinks that the European welfare state is based on progressive taxation, with the government taking the role of Robin Hood. Lindert's (the economist author) research totally refutes that. He shows convincingly that greater welfare expenditure has always been accompanied by increasingly regressive taxation. Even though European tax on income may appear to be progressive, that hides the fact that most European countries, especially those with high welfare expenditures, rely heavily on taxes which are regressive in nature, such as their 20%-25% VAT taxes. The bottom line... people pay for what they get. They don't put up with being forced to pay for what they don't get.
How is it bad to know factual information? Isn't it better to make rational fact-based decisions rather than to emote one's way through life making mistake after mistake after mistake that ultimately ends up dragging one down?
Do I think improvements could be made? Of course! Do I think we should spend less on national defense? Of course? HOWEVER, national defense is Constitutionally mandated. Means-tested public assistance programs are not. Stop spending taxpayers' money on them and fund them via voluntary donations. If society values them, as some seem to claim, they'll voluntarily fund them.
Please have mercy...
Where is the comment that makes the case that it is bad to know factual information?
This is exactly the sort of straw man argument nonsense that most people can see right through even as you insist on stumbling along in the dark with these ridiculous versions of what you consider the argument.
Why do some parties -- in all countries -- tend to gain the support of the poor and disadvantaged?
They promise them things that are advertised as "free." Robbing Peter to pay Paul means you can always count on Paul's vote.
Which is how all governments evolve towards tyranny...because the people always evolve towards sloth, greed and envy. Take from the haves, give to the have nots; lather, rinse, repeat.
Buying your way into power and then continually increasing the spending to keep the power...that's how government works, at least until the money runs out. Then comes conquest, revolution, or other forms of reset, then begin the cycle over again.
What you seek is nothing new. You are helping the people evolve to sloth, greed and envy, and you seek an increase in tyranny to placate them along their evolutionary path. The pattern is as old as humans.
More BS from Informed with his carefully picked stats...
Hey Informed are you going to admit MILLIONS of Republican farmers are getting handouts that don't get classed as "means" tested.. and thus reduce your republican numbers ..
there will be 20 billion in SOCIALIST price protections provided by taxpayers to farmers...
White republican farmers LOVE socialism, they love the US gov providing price protections instead of having to compete fairly....Those Republican farmers just love taxpayers footing the bill for them...
But if you listen to informed consent you would believe it is minorities who gobble up all the federal benefits.. Posters like Informed consent ALWAYs use the means tested benefits, because they make minorities look bad. And of course Republicans insist benefits that go to predominantly minority groups are always means tested... but public handouts to their Republican voters get classed as non benefit , they get called Agricultural Incentives , Crop Insurance etc . Republicans do this to protect the egos of Republican voters who take the government handouts ..
In short it is very hypocritical of Republicans and libertarians to pretend democrats and minorities live off the state, when any reasonable american would admit Republicans simply rebranded the handouts their voters get as other things to reduce the stigma
But Informed doesn't seem to think anyone who disagrees with him can have any good rational reason to do so. Why? I'd like to think I've addressed that question more than a few times in this thread already, but of course when one's logic is so bad and when your comments are fed back to you like meat through a sausage maker, what better can anyone expect?
That still begs the question... WHY are Democrats so much less capable of supporting themselves and their dependents than are Republicans?
Who says they are?
And if so, maybe because most blacks and Latinos are Democrats, two ethnic groups that have always had higher levels of poverty for historic and other reasons.
That's exactly WHY I don't understand why those who want Euro-style social programs are unwilling to pay the Euro-style regressive taxes needed to fund them. It makes zero logical sense.
Maybe come up with some data that represents who all these people are that you are referring to and more specifically what they are advocating, and maybe you won't have to spend so much time trying to understand what you struggle to understand...
They're not "my" stats. I listed the sources: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, NPR, PEW Research. 2/3 or more of those who receive means-tested public assistance benefits are Democrats. 1/4 or less are Republicans.
Sticking your head in the sand and refusing to accept factual information doesn't change anything.
And I have frequently said... End the farm bill, 80+% of which funds Food Stamps and other Fed Gov means-tested free food programs. No aid to farmers and no Food Stamps.
NOPE spoke you ONLY of the stats that would make dems look bad and ignored the reality that republicans take trillions in benefits but simply rebrand them as incentives, etc.
And frankly you do this in thread after thread and then pretend the whole point of the thread is your little stat.
And NO we will not end it. Me and 99% of the US say NO.
You mean some say no. I suggest we put that to the test by having means-tested assistance benefits funded voluntarily by donations. That way, we'll see how society really feels about them, whether they're valued by society or not.
NO i mean the US. It is called hyperbole. get used to it, because EVERYONE uses it .
and frankly that is the consensus of the american people, hell we have been voting on this stuff for 250 odd years and over that time we have continued to ADD benefits overall. Because that is what we ALL want.
Your vote simply gets washed away with millions and millions and millions of Americans saying "nope" to your worldview.
Hell you guys don't even fill stadiums, you rent little halls because anything larger makes it look like nobody came.
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