[xyzzyz]

When your friend Steve comes to you to "borrow" $100 (that he'll never return), because he's short on rent, and he blew last of his cash on hookers and booze, it seems pretty reasonable and perfectly morally justified to either refuse outright, or condition your help on requirement that Steve gets a job, and quits his hookers and booze habit. Certainly, nobody would ever suggest that you have any obligation to enable Steve to live his desired lifestyle of leisure, hookers and booze.

However, when it's the government that comes and asks you to give them $100, so that they could in turn give it to Joe, an acquaintance of Steve living the same lifestyle that you have never even met, somehow now it is your moral obligation to pay up, as Joe clearly deserves your money. How does that work?

[lasfter]

Because some of the money also goes to Sally who genuinely needs help. I don't understand how you can be okay with people starving or working themselves to death to survive and provide for their families, just because others do things you disapprove of.

You're also ignoring the fact that someone who is eligible for this kind of social security and spends it all on booze is probably unwell and needs treatment for addiction and the conditions that cause it. In many cases, the cause of addiction is poverty itself.

This fear of being "scammed" by the Joes and Steves of the world is completely irrational. The government is taking a big chunk of your money anyways. What's being proposed is that instead of spending tax dollars on killing poor people abroad, you spend it on helping poor people at home, regardless of their work ethic.

[someguydave]

“ The government is taking a big chunk of your money anyways” I think the idea is that if the government took less money, there would be more money in the hands of people to help take care of local misery.

[jpetso]

The government doesn't generally tax poor people much, so most tax savings benefit those that can better afford life already. The whole purpose of taxes is to take enough from the ones that are still doing okay and redistribute it to stuff that more wealthy people wouldn't necessarily choose to spend it on, but that are still a net benefit to society over other causes.

So, say government increases the income limit for one of the lower tax brackets by $5,000. That's great for people who make more than that, which btw isn't all poor people, but at the same time it also gives more money to everyone who was already doing okay. Meaning inflation will soon eat up the extra money and we're right back where we started.

In order to help the poor with upgrading to non-poor, the government has to explicitly avoid extending that benefit to the rest of society, has to continue taking from middle and upper income people. It needs to be targeted, and tax cuts are a great way to target middle/upper classes while helping poor people less.

[eecc]

well said, thank you.

[RobertKerans]

It works because that's not the calculation being made. You're not giving up money specifically to a "Steve" or "Joe". What you are doing is putting money into a pool. From that pool, the money is redistributed in such a way as to provide baseline income to people in need. Most of the people it is redistributed to are not "Steve" or "Joe", and the calculation is that it is cheaper to ignore free riders such as Steve/Joe as they are a small minority. The calculation is also that not providing this baseline is both economically bad (providing a baseline seems to be much more cost effective than dealing with effects of not doing that) and morally bad (most of the people in need of the baseline are in need of it not [directly] through fault of their own)

[landryraccoon]

Paying Steve $100 isn't the only option.

If my alcoholic friend from college came to me because he was short on rent or needed to buy them groceries, I wouldn't give them $100. I'd offer to buy them groceries or write a check to the landlord directly.

The government can do the same thing. If someone needs healthcare or education and can't afford it, pay for the healthcare or education. A social net doesn't mean a blank check.

[datavirtue]

What if he blew his budget buying cable TV and soda? I lived in poverty, and had many aquaintances who were also in poverty. Everyone had children, and so many of them had $30-40k a year in benefits (welfare). Everyone had gaming consoles and very large modern TVs and computers, endless soda on tap (that is all they would drink), and everyone had cable TV and bought drugs (cocaine, weed)...and cigarettes. Everyone I knew. This was just their life with no serious ambitions. I forgot to mention that most households pulling in government benefits were engaged in fraud. Often the fraud was a live-boyfriend who contributed money but who's income was not counted on the mothers' benefit calculation because she claimed to live alone with her children.

Before you make soap box comments you should be aware of reality. You might think I'm arguing against welfare benefits but I am not. The whole time I watched this state of affairs I seethed because it was middle class tax payers making up the difference in pay for walmart and other corporations who pay poverty wages.

[mattbk1]

To add to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26307485, the government may be in a position to turn that $100 directly into food or housing for Steve.

[xyzzyz]

The $100 Steve asked me to borrow will also turn directly into housing. He said that he needs it to meet his rent, and he's not lying: he will use it to pay his rent. Nevertheless, that just enables him to continue his hookers and booze habit.

[mattbk1]

If he can continue to both pay his rent and continue [his habits that you disagree with], is there a problem? Is the problem that Steve won't pay you back, or that he won't pay you back because he spent money on [habits that you disagree with]?

[mcguire]

In your mind, is blowing the "last of his cash on hookers and booze" the median behavior of people who are short on rent?

[xyzzyz]

No, but the point is that when my friends ask me for help, I can use the circumstances under which they got themselves into needing help in my decision of whether I help them, and whether there is any moral obligation on me to help them. With government, there is no such option: they will take my money by force, use it for anything at all that they might possibly want, and all I can say is something on the order of one or two bits of feedback every 4-5 years.

[dahfizz]

In your mind, does that description fit absolutely nobody who is short on rent?

[mcguire]

Not enough to make it a serious problem. But then I'm neither a Puritanical moralist nor a "better 10 (or 100) good people starve than one bad person gets benefits", either.

[vinger]

If society agrees to give $100 to the military you have no say in how they spend it.

If society agrees to give $100 to Steve then you have no say in how that move is spent.

If you think it's better not to give to Steve anything and you lobby to change the law and are successful. When Andre is affected by this change he decides to make up the difference by breaking into your place and killing you. At least Steve doesn't have his hookers right?

[ska]

> How does that work?

Because to a first approximation, that's not what ever happens. "Steve" is far more a political talking point than a real person.

[xyzzyz]

Interesting to hear this, when I modeled “Steve” after two people I personally know. One is my family member, and the other is my middle school acquaintance. Their lifestyle is exactly enabled by the money they get from government. Should I believe you, or my own lying eyes?

[ska]

> Should I believe you, or my own lying eyes?

Neither of course! Either believing your own experience to generalize well or believing someone random on the internet would be crazy talk.

What you should believe is the research on this, which admittedly is difficult with anything this politicized. What I base it on is a combination of reading some of that (though I'm no expert) and knowing some people quite well who have had state level responsibility for programs of this kind.

Fraud, and "Steves" certainly exist, but it seems that the numbers are small enough they don't have much systemic impact, there are many much bigger issues.

That's what I meant by "to a first approximation"; not that it doesn't exist, but the effect isn't of 1st order importance.