@Micah Erfan, nice piece. The issue is that, to the extent that we desire to use wealth distribution as a tool to enhance and uplift people, to maximize their innate potential, we have to tread carefully.
These problems require funding and there are limits to how much we can “tax” our way to this funding before we imperil the underlying growth.
If we stunt this growth through taxation or try to finance it through heavy debt burdens, we risk stifling prosperity, and when we do this, we return to a “zero-sum” world that can destroy democracy anyway.
This is one reason I have explored using vouchers for education and healthcare, coupled with spending caps, to try and balance these risks.
90% of the welfare state is a transfer of resources from market based workers to the professional credentialed class (doctors, teachers, administrators, cops, social workers, etc). Those professionals range from middle class to UMC and beyond, but they are rarely close to poor. In exchange those professionals provide "the poor" with services of debatable usefulness*. Whether they are useful or not, they get paid.
The purpose of the welfare state is to pay those professionals, who remain its most steadfast supporters.
*For instance, medical care is useful but at least half our system is waste. Free daycare provided by K-12 is useful, but it could be a lot more fun for the kids and cost like 1/2 what a lot of the expensive districts spend. Etc.
@Micah Erfan, nice piece. The issue is that, to the extent that we desire to use wealth distribution as a tool to enhance and uplift people, to maximize their innate potential, we have to tread carefully.
These problems require funding and there are limits to how much we can “tax” our way to this funding before we imperil the underlying growth.
If we stunt this growth through taxation or try to finance it through heavy debt burdens, we risk stifling prosperity, and when we do this, we return to a “zero-sum” world that can destroy democracy anyway.
This is one reason I have explored using vouchers for education and healthcare, coupled with spending caps, to try and balance these risks.
Why ARE your ARTICLE titles in ALL CAPS?
makes THEM more RECOGNIZABLE
WOW so TRUE.
90% of the welfare state is a transfer of resources from market based workers to the professional credentialed class (doctors, teachers, administrators, cops, social workers, etc). Those professionals range from middle class to UMC and beyond, but they are rarely close to poor. In exchange those professionals provide "the poor" with services of debatable usefulness*. Whether they are useful or not, they get paid.
The purpose of the welfare state is to pay those professionals, who remain its most steadfast supporters.
*For instance, medical care is useful but at least half our system is waste. Free daycare provided by K-12 is useful, but it could be a lot more fun for the kids and cost like 1/2 what a lot of the expensive districts spend. Etc.