Its clearly the right time to slash the social safety net

[PLATO]

I will say this...ideas don't only "evolve", but they "devolve" as well. Both Europe and The U.S. were built by people taking personal responsibility for not only themselves, but others in their community as well. To me the European idea of "Social Justice" (which is , sadly, cathching on here) allows the individual to abdicate that personal responsibility in favor of the government. This, imho, creates a spiral where the governments will be called on to do more and more. When you balance this against cost, and peoples natural reluctance to be taxed, then you have governments taking on more fiscal responsibility than they can sustain. We are seeing this on both sides of the Atlantic to differing degrees.

To me, the Rebublican ideal is not to throw homeless people to the wolves, but rather to encourage community based solutions and encourage conditions which work to eliminate the need for social safety nets.

[Hauldren Collider]

This is always the lamest response ever & usually it indicates there are none. Kid, for instance, uses this all the time.

Break's coming up in less than a week, I promise to catch up on this stuff then

[MRT144]

I will say this...ideas don't only "evolve", but they "devolve" as well. Both Europe and The U.S. were built by people taking personal responsibility for not only themselves, but others in their community as well. To me the European idea of "Social Justice" (which is , sadly, cathching on here) allows the individual to abdicate that personal responsibility in favor of the government. This, imho, creates a spiral where the governments will be called on to do more and more. When you balance this against cost, and peoples natural reluctance to be taxed, then you have governments taking on more fiscal responsibility than they can sustain. We are seeing this on both sides of the Atlantic to differing degrees.

To me, the Rebublican ideal is not to throw homeless people to the wolves, but rather to encourage community based solutions and encourage conditions which work to eliminate the need for social safety nets.

The simple problem of the Republican ideal though is that community based solutions are absent in situations where someone in need sufficiently different or deemed morally deficient.

[Jon Miller]

The rich sequester their communities...
JM

[PLATO]

The simple problem of the Republican ideal though is that community based solutions are absent in situations where someone in need sufficiently different or deemed morally deficient.

I agree that the "judgment" that can go on in these types of solutions is not optimal, but this is where the government should step in. One of the fundamental purposes of the government is to protect the right of the individual from the ill advised will of the majority. I don't know what the best answer is there, but Legislation regulating community based solutions and the cost of enforcement surely has to be less than the government managing the programs.

I can say this though...the "one size fits all" remedy that the federal government provides is not equitable eithier. I have seen people getting the same amount of Socials Security for disabilities in East Tennessee that is a fortune and in Memphis that is hardly enough to make ends meet. Not only that, but in some places in East Tennessee people talk about those that get "Crazy Checks" for being depressed when they are fully capable of being productive people if their communities would engage them.

All in all, I am not sure that there is ANY system that would not have inequities in it. It is my belief that encouraging local communities is a far better solution than having the government dictate what the solution is.

[MRT144]

I agree that the "judgment" that can go on in these types of solutions is not optimal, but this is where the government should step in. One of the fundamental purposes of the government is to protect the right of the individual from the ill advised will of the majority. I don't know what the best answer is there, but Legislation regulating community based solutions and the cost of enforcement surely has to be less than the government managing the programs.

I can say this though...the "one size fits all" remedy that the federal government provides is not equitable eithier. I have seen people getting the same amount of Socials Security for disabilities in East Tennessee that is a fortune and in Memphis that is hardly enough to make ends meet. Not only that, but in some places in East Tennessee people talk about those that get "Crazy Checks" for being depressed when they are fully capable of being productive people if their communities would engage them.

All in all, I am not sure that there is ANY system that would not have inequities in it. It is my belief that encouraging local communities is a far better solution than having the government dictate what the solution is.

the entire SSDI system pretty bad. There are similar parts of people scamming and people being denied. I agree with local solutions on principle but I'm wary of them being either an excuse for national problems.

[kentonio]

I will say this...ideas don't only "evolve", but they "devolve" as well. Both Europe and The U.S. were built by people taking personal responsibility for not only themselves, but others in their community as well. To me the European idea of "Social Justice" (which is , sadly, cathching on here) allows the individual to abdicate that personal responsibility in favor of the government.

The idea of social justice is paid for by the citizens here being willing to pay a significant portion of their income to the state to manage many of the essentials of life. You say the state can't pay for it, but that's simply not true as the European countries ARE paying for it and have been for decades. We pay higher taxes than you but then we don't have personal expenses such as healthcare and we never end up in a situation where we can fall into complete desperate poverty.

To me, the Rebublican ideal is not to throw homeless people to the wolves, but rather to encourage community based solutions and encourage conditions which work to eliminate the need for social safety nets.

There will never be that perfect place where social safety nets are not needed, and putting the onus onto charities and communities to provide essential services just means that you may get great support or you may get ****ty support and it may depend on nothing more than what town or county or state you live in.

[Mojotronica]

To me, the Rebublican ideal is not to throw homeless people to the wolves, but rather to encourage community based solutions and encourage conditions which work to eliminate the need for social safety nets.

That would make sense, but in WA state the Republican party works hard to tear down state and local solutions to problems wherever possible. I don't know how it is in other states, but here any level of government is suspect.

Don't take my word for it, here are some links:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011756951_kemper02m.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Eyman

I can't figure out what they want except maybe total anarchy. Maybe WA state just inspires the nuttiest of small gov't reflexes.

[KrazyHorse]

Ah so I supply the answer you clearly missed, but I'm the ignorant one? Nice try psycho, now how about you actually respond to the point I made, rather than pulling your sad little 'I tire of talking to this stupid person' card. You may know a lot about economics or finance or whatever, but when it comes to things like humanity you really are a ****ing idiot.

Right, because your "some old people take care of younger people who take care of children, therefore medical support for the elderly helps THE CHILLUNS" isn't utterly retarded, and requires more than a gale of laughter to knock it over.

****ing imbecile.

[KrazyHorse]

To me, it is fighting a problem that in the big picture was not that important. The entire concept of the welfare queen being common and nefarious was straight up hype.

[...]

It's the same hype. Huge policy shifts for small problems.

1) I agree that relative to the general population, the problem of a shift to the left in the labor supply curve due to unemployment insurance is probably not massive
2) This is NOT the right scale to measure the problem against; the right scale is the population of people benefiting from unemployment insurance (in other words, your "huge policy shift" isn't actually huge)
3) When the question is "should I be reduced in length from x weeks to y weeks", say, the relevant point of comparison is the shift in labor supply caused by this incremental change versus the number of people receiving benefits
4) In addition to the labor supply shift, there is the additional deadweight loss caused by paperwork AND by rent-seeking behavior on the part of those who would not get jobs under either UI regime, but who do get UI
5) The final deadweight loss is due to the revenue required to be raised to pay for benefits (this may well be the largest loss).

The major benefit to any scheme such as UI is the higher marginal utility of dollars spent by the poor compared to those spent by people whose taxes pay for UI. I have no idea why UI is necessary as a separate redistributionary scheme.

Do you remember when the law passed so that student debt was no longer able to be discharged, and the entire run up to the bill cited nefarious doctors who declared bankruptcy to avoid their student loans? Well, when statistical research was applied the findings were that doctors did not declare bankruptcy at a higher rate than other professions and in fact declared in much lower numbers.

If you think this is the major reason which argues for student debt not being dischargeable under bankruptcy then you are a ****ing moron. It may have been the populist argument used, but if you want to be taken seriously you should probably disregard populist arguments.

[KrazyHorse]

As far as ideology, I have no problem with governments forcibly taxing in order to redistribute. The problem is that the vast majority of even intelligent proponents of redistribution:

1) Refuse to acknowledge that taxation and redistribution (assuming that both are based on market income) both have disincentivizing effects
2) Tend to want to redistribute in utterly retarded ways that are even more distortionary than necessary, due to some kind of moralization of redistribution (i.e. some idiotic desert interpretation of government's role)

[kentonio]

Right, because your "some old people take care of younger people who take care of children, therefore medical support for the elderly helps THE CHILLUNS" isn't utterly retarded, and requires more than a gale of laughter to knock it over.

****ing imbecile.

The idiotic thing is thinking that these things don't have knock on effects beyond the obvious. Then again trying to strip medicare away from the elderly is pretty ****ed up on its own, without the added effects of homelessness.

[MRT144]

1) I agree that relative to the general population, the problem of a shift to the left in the labor supply curve due to unemployment insurance is probably not massive
2) This is NOT the right scale to measure the problem against; the right scale is the population of people benefiting from unemployment insurance (in other words, your "huge policy shift" isn't actually huge)
3) When the question is "should I be reduced in length from x weeks to y weeks", say, the relevant point of comparison is the shift in labor supply caused by this incremental change versus the number of people receiving benefits
4) In addition to the labor supply shift, there is the additional deadweight loss caused by paperwork AND by rent-seeking behavior on the part of those who would not get jobs under either UI regime, but who do get UI
5) The final deadweight loss is due to the revenue required to be raised to pay for benefits (this may well be the largest loss).

The major benefit to any scheme such as UI is the higher marginal utility of dollars spent by the poor compared to those spent by people whose taxes pay for UI. I have no idea why UI is necessary as a separate redistributionary scheme.

Do you remember when the law passed so that student debt was no longer able to be discharged, and the entire run up to the bill cited nefarious doctors who declared bankruptcy to avoid their student loans? Well, when statistical research was applied the findings were that doctors did not declare bankruptcy at a higher rate than other professions and in fact declared in much lower numbers.

If you think this is the major reason which argues for student debt not being dischargeable under bankruptcy then you are a ****ing moron. It may have been the populist argument used, but if you want to be taken seriously you should probably disregard populist arguments.

that absolutely was the rhetorical example used to cajole congress critters in the early 80s. I understand the reasoning beyond that but do you think that making them non dischargable distorts credit risk? As for the rest ill respond when im mot ony tablet

[KrazyHorse]

kentardio:

Please provide an estimate of what effect a marginal dollar spent on medicare has on spending on children in poverty.

[KrazyHorse]

that absolutely was the rhetorical example used to cajole congress critters in the early 80s. I understand the reasoning beyond that but do you think that making them non dischargable distorts credit risk? As for the rest ill respond when im mot ony tablet

I don't know what you mean by "distorts credit risk". The single most important reason to make student debt non-dischargeable is that without this, lenders and students would be unable to freely contract in an extremely beneficial way. Any restriction on th ability of parties to freely contract under any terms and conditions they choose involves a deadweight loss (certain loans which would have been made will not be due to the existence of bankruptcy protection). The problem is orders of magnitude larger when the loans are taken out by people who (in general) have no tangible assets and who will be purchasing an asset which cannot be seized.

Remember that students are still free to contract for loans which can be discharged by bankruptcy (e.g. a regular consumer loan); the fact that this market is almost nonexistent tells you the scale of the benefits shared by both parties due to the change of rules.

The only positive from personal bankruptcy law I'm aware of is the insurance aspect. Dischargeability of debts as a form of insurance only makes sense if the vast majority of borrowers will not experience a situation where bankruptcy is a rational choice, and where this situation is unforeseeable by the borrower; this does not apply to student debt (and as I stated earlier, revealed preference is to contract for non-dischargeable student debt at a lower rate of interest).

Note that the issue of personal bankruptcy is very different from the issue of corporate bankruptcy, especially as it pertains to limited liability corporations which literally could not exist without bankruptcy laws.