|
rune, you have this habit of cherry-picking:
• carbon and sin taxes are not the sum of government fiscal policy;
• collecting taxes and using them for public spending isn't "giving" away your money;
• a single clinic with logistic and/or funding problems isn't representative of the entire system;
• you assume that your tax money is being used only for the lazy;
You only recently have come out in any strong commentary that what you actually oppose is government inefficiencies and/or corruption. And that you oppose the use of tax dollars to help those in need (regardless of the need). That's fine. You are entitled to oppose that.
What I have a problem with is your glossing over the realities of some of these things. The healthcare system helps the working class, who might not otherwise be able to afford healthcare. Welfare helps those who have struggled due to things beyond their control. The majority of welfare recipients aren't even dependent on it; they get off of it within a year or two. And as for single mothers who use it: they do so for various reasons. They aren't all simply irresponsible women who shouldn't have had children. They are also survivors of abuse and abandonment.
You aren't looking at the big picture. You're cherry-picking the worst of situations and overlooking all the other stuff that goes on in people's lives.
Don't you see the overall benefit of this kind of social spending? Remove it and you create a large class of poor. (All of whom would absolutely not be simply "lazy.") Do you know what the poor do when things get desperate? Society begins to crumble.
I'm still not sure what you want as an alternative. How would you deal with the poor? Please don't talk about the lazy. It's not very helpful here. Your "dealing" with the lazy would hurt those who aren't lazy, and they vastly outnumber them, I'm sure.
__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
|