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In the quoted portion of someone's post in another thread, I recently read a proposal for the guarantee of financial well-being of seniors by having the government grant every person over 65 $40,000 per year, no questions asked. And yes, married couples would get $80,000. I thought that was so completely insane that I elected to make the discussion of it a separate thread. I have objections on both the practical and the philosophical level.
On the philosophical level, how would young people (who are also voters and tax payers) feel about such a grant of a very comfortable life for every senior when many of the young people are struggling? Such a gross favoritism based on age alone ought to be objectionable to every fair-minded person. There is already quite enough inter-generational resentment without adding fuel to the fire so blatantly.
A more minor but still philosophical issue is how to justify favoring married couples over single people in such a blatant fashion. It does not cost twice as much for two people to live, not nearly so.
Moving to the practical level, how would such a massive give-away be funded? The argument that it would be funded by re-directing existing wasteful spending ignores two facts: First, how would we as a nation agree on the wasteful spending to be eliminated? People have different ideas about what constitutes the most blatant waste. Second, how would we as a nation agree on how the re-directed wasteful spending should be spent? Everyone would have a pet project, such as the massive give-away to seniors, but not everyone would agree because people would have different pet projects.
The level of proposed senior welfare funding is so high as to belong in a fantasy land. Depending on where one lives, the proposed amounts would represent an extremely comfortable way of life - New York City and a few other places excepted, of course.
If it were really possible to mandate a cushy life for all people by legislative fiat (or even for a large subset of people such as those 65 and older), someone would have found a way. But that is not possible, since there is no such thing as a free lunch when it all boils down. All experiments along those lines have ended in failure for excellent reasons, especially as draconian force would have to be involved in the ultimately hopeless task.
We don't live in a Garden of Eden where adequate fruit and other nourishment is ripe for the easy picking. And we seniors do not merit such extraordinary favoritism just by virtue of having survived to a given age.
No reason, just something someone's making up. Very few people need $40,000 more and there is no way to afford to give it to them. Seniors who are having a difficult time financially should receive more help than they do now but that's a different story.
Would that scenario mean giving up one's property and other assets to the gov't and living in gov't-provided senior housing? If so, sounds like that novel The Planner. And in that case, the gov't would inherit (confiscate?) and awful lot of loot.
In the quoted portion of someone's post in another thread, I recently read a proposal for the guarantee of financial well-being of seniors by having the government grant every person over 65 $40,000 per year, no questions asked. And yes, married couples would get $80,000. I thought that was so completely insane that I elected to make the discussion of it a separate thread. I have objections on both the practical and the philosophical level.
It wasn't a proposal; it was an off-handed, off-the-wall, ridiculous comment by an anonymous individual on a message board. You, yourself, even noted above that it is an insane notion. And yet your reaction is to create a separate thread and have a deep philosophical discussion about such a lunatic suggestion?
Seriously?
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