Quote :

"^^ Again, you are ignoring the fact that the current benefit programs are currently not available to most of us. The only people in society which are automatically eligible for these programs are those raising children. As most of us are not raising children, the calculation is to either work and have income or not work to go live on the street."

-LoneSnark

This is simply untrue as written. One does not need children to receive medicaid, medicare, social security, food stamps, section 8 housing assistance, pell grants, or plenty of other types of assistance.

Sure, there are some programs that were specifically created to help families with dependent children (like TANF). But to say that all or most benefit programs are currently not available to people without kids? False.

[Edited on May 14, 2012 at 7:42 PM. Reason : ``]

5/14/2012 7:35:50 PM

I trust I don't need to point out the eligibility restrictions for social security disability. The only one you listed that a 30 year old single male couch surfing (homeless) would be eligible for is medicaid, which pays in kind. Similarly with section 8 and food stamps, both of which are heavily means tested, so having any savings at all makes you ineligible.

As we would want it to. We don't want people to be eligible for handouts unless they really need them. So they are not eligible. So there is no disincentive to seek work because of them.

5/15/2012 12:14:50 AM

I am not going to play "sling until it sticks" with you. First you said you had to have kids to receive any aid. That is false. Now you say you can't receive benefits like food stamps if you have any savings at all. This is also false.

If you took the time to google your claim, you would see that you actually can have plenty of savings and still receive food stamps. Specifically, your 30 year old lout can sign up for the dole with $2,000 in "countable resources" like cash in the bank. That *does not include* savings held in the form of assets such as his home, his car (in some states anyways), or most retirement accounts (like a 401k or IRA).
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm

It is my impression that section 8 housing is similar in that it does not require applicants to have no savings. If I am wrong, you can post a link.

In either case, I think we've reached the end of our discussion. You can't respect me as a person, if you think I am too dumb to use a search engine.

[Edited on May 15, 2012 at 9:33 AM. Reason : ``]

5/15/2012 9:05:46 AM

Well, if you refuse to discuss it then it is difficult to discern what size minority of Americans are eligible for these programs. $2k in the bank is not plenty. And food stamps/housing assistance are not substitutes for money. Homeless shelters provide both food and housing, what people want is cash. As such, that they will lose subsidized food/housing/phone while gaining cash subsidization through the EITC should make current government policy a net subsidy in favor of work.

No need to divert vast societal resources through the tax system, a definite harm, to achieve no beneficial effect among the poor at all. If I am wrong and the EITC is too low, then make it higher.

5/15/2012 9:50:41 AM

I don't want to end on a sour note, Lone Snark, because I do like most of your posts.

So I will sign off by acknowledging your broader point that a negative income tax would make it hard to target aid to the "deserving poor" (which for you sounds like poor women with kids).

But what I am trying to stress is that I really don't think our current system does a good job of that anyways. Sure some govt programs are targeted for needy families (TANF), but there is still lots of assistance available for your hypothetical 30 yr old single male. If his income is low enough the government will give him health care (medicaid), food (food stamps), education (pell grant), and possibly some sort of housing assistance (Section 8 Single Room Occupancy Program).

Not only does our current system not weed out people you seem to think shouldn't receive assistance, but it is so complicated that many people you seem to think should receive assistance don't get the help they need. For example, almost 2/3 of medicaid eligible children are not enrolled.
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/two-thirds-medicaid-eligible-children-not-enrolled/2010-09-06

Maybe a negative income tax isn't perfect and maybe I over stated my case that we could eliminate almost all other welfare programs with a single silver bullet. But I am not convinced that moving toward a negative income tax wouldn't be a huge improvement over what we have now.

Anyways. That's all I have to say. See you guys later.

5/15/2012 9:58:45 AM

I thought lone snark was an eitc fan?

5/15/2012 10:04:24 AM

^^ (from link)

Quote :

"Roughly 7.3 million children were not insured on an average day in 2008. Of those, 65 percent were eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, but not enrolled, based on researchers' analysis of data from the 2008 American Community Survey, a yearly survey fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau. Some 700,000 children are part of the annual sample."

This sounds like a compelling argument to remove the requirement for establishment of need. If many of those who fit the requirement don't receive the benefit in the first place, then the program obviously isn't accomplishing it's purpose. Just give the benefit to everyone. Problem solved.

[Edited on May 15, 2012 at 10:37 AM. Reason : ]

5/15/2012 10:37:19 AM

Quote :

"I thought lone snark was an eitc fan?"

I am and always think the EITC can use increasing.

But sending a check every year to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will never make sense to me.

5/15/2012 10:54:26 AM

6/4/2012 12:18:05 AM

i'm still not sure if this makes me a communist, or even if it would work, but i like this idea more and more lately. mostly based on the inability of the job market to keep up with technology making jobs obsolete

7/7/2013 7:35:44 PM

I like it because it takes away the excuse of people on assistance to not work. Every requirement creates a distortion.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm

Quote :

"Households may have $2,000 in countable resources, such as a bank account, or $3250 in countable resources if at least one person is age 60 or older, or is disabled."

Here, we've created a program that demands that poor people stay poor in order to keep receiving assistance. It teaches people to not save. Surprise - they learned.

7/7/2013 7:39:31 PM

Why are you giving these people money?

to buy food?
to pay for healthcare?
education?

why not just give an adequate amount of that to everyone without involving money at all. Money always messes things up.

Money can be used solely for luxuries and things beyond basic needs.

7/7/2013 7:45:25 PM

bttt

5/15/2014 11:46:43 PM

Get a fucking job, hippie!

5/16/2014 12:53:53 AM

Universal basic income (UBI) will gain popularity once machines start taking over more jobs.

It's probably the easiest way to adapt to a world of machine intelligence.

5/16/2014 12:56:50 AM

machines already are taking over more jobs. much of the inequality growth of the last 30 years is due to advances in technology and automation shifting the capital/labor balance toward capital.

and it's not just low-skill jobs that are being replaced. professions requiring higher education and training are subject to the same affects. we won't create new industries and professions, nor train people for them, fast enough to keep participating workforce at the same high percentages it was in decades past.

5/16/2014 10:44:49 PM

Quote :

"we won't create new industries and professions, nor train people for them, fast enough to keep participating workforce at the same high percentages it was in decades past."

I don't even think it's possible to keep labor participation rates as high as they were in the past even if we were able to train them at the pace of advancing technology.

Unskilled labor will soon be almost non-existent, competition for semi-skilled labor will be very high, and employment will shift more and more towards service and technology jobs.

I'm not sure how that will play out in terms of the overall economy. I can legitimately see a point at which we will start seeing legislation to prevent automation.

5/17/2014 8:52:19 AM

Quote :

"employment will shift more and more towards service and technology jobs."

Tech jobs are the next big target for computerization.

Service industry is all that'll be left.

5/17/2014 1:17:00 PM

No they aren't, shut the fuck up.

5/17/2014 9:46:56 PM

Lol yes they are, it's been happening and will continue to happen.

High schoolers with a little excel knowledge are doing the work of skilled technicians from decades ago. Easy to use content management systems have allowed secretaries to create web pages, that required a programmer years ago. In the not too distant future, you won't need as many software engineers when people can speak to their computers to show them some data, and the computer does the back end logic to make this happen (logic is what computers are best at).

What do you think will happen when computers can program computers...? When computers do the engineering and just give the results to the scientists/managers/end users?

Obviously not all the engineering jobs will go away, but the market is only going to shrink as computers grow smarter.

Service industry and art/performers will be what humans are best at.

5/18/2014 1:02:10 AM

Better work on those people skills!

Those computers arnt selling themselves.

5/18/2014 6:40:47 AM

Quote :

"High schoolers with a little excel knowledge are doing the work of skilled technicians from decades ago. Easy to use content management systems have allowed secretaries to create web pages, that required a programmer years ago."

You're literally just making shit up now. Which companies is this taking place? Is this in the same fantasy land that generates all your liberty killing ideas?

Quote :

"In the not too distant future, you won't need as many software engineers when people can speak to their computers to show them some data, and the computer does the back end logic to make this happen (logic is what computers are best at)"

Would we also have nuclear powered flying cars in this same not too distant future?

Quote :

"What do you think will happen when computers can program computers...? When computers do the engineering and just give the results to the scientists/managers/end users? "

Look, we can all theorize about everything, but you're not putting any sort of real timeline on any of this bullshit so it's basically pointless.

Quote :

"Obviously not all the engineering jobs will go away, but the market is only going to shrink as computers grow smarter."

You've demonstrated no such thing anywhere.

5/18/2014 7:36:25 AM

Before we purposefully impoverish ourselves over lower labor participation, perhaps we should try eliminating the massive amount of tax, liability, and regulatory compliance issues we've imposed upon the labor force.

What an odd coincidence that labor force participation is falling in the age of obamacare, rising minimum wages, and out of control occupational licensing.

Shocker: we made it illegal to employ people and discovered to our horror fewer people were employed.

5/18/2014 11:42:40 AM

I dont recognize this CuntPunter fellow but he gets instant credibility for a great username.

5/18/2014 11:52:55 AM

^^^
Ha just google that stuff, it's well characterized elsewhere. Sorry my forum post at 2am didn't meet your standards for citations. Just pointing out I didn't cite anything isn't a real response, this stuff isn't made up.

^^ loolll Canada's middle class just overtook us, your theory that this is obama's fault is laughable. It also doesn't stand up to the fact that this has been a trend for decades. Our current path will impoverish us, and this is because we kow tow to the wealthy rather than look out for the people. Trickle down has been an abject failure.

5/18/2014 4:05:50 PM

Quote :

"I dont recognize this CuntPunter fellow but he gets instant credibility for a great username."

Also aided by being on the "Starting Lineup".

5/18/2014 7:35:06 PM

Andrew Yang for President 2020

4/15/2019 2:10:47 PM

Quote :

"Specifically, your 30 year old lout can sign up for the dole with $2,000 in "countable resources" like cash in the bank. That *does not include* savings held in the form of assets such as his home, his car (in some states anyways), or most retirement accounts (like a 401k or IRA)."

So a poor person is eligible for benefits? Got it.

4/16/2019 8:15:09 AM

Only took you 7 years to come up with retort, gg

4/16/2019 10:14:18 AM