[tomstokes]

> because some undeserving person (who is not in their group) might get it.

Surely someone, somewhere feels like this, but it’s more often a strawman argument used to make opposing arguments more easily dismissible. The discussions I have with people offline aren’t interested in these types of dismissals. I know many people who genuinely want better healthcare, cheaper education, and stronger social safety nets but who disagree with the specifics of proposals. Like most things in politics, if an argument reduces the other side to an easily-dismissible evil, it’s probably not an accurate representation of the counterarguments.

From real world anecdotes, the concern about things like student loan forgiveness (as the most recent example of an expensive social program being debated) are more about the extreme cost of the program contributing to an ever increasing list of expenditures. People are nervous about the amount of government spending and how it’s being distributed semi-randomly. This goes back to the rampant COVID loans to businesses, the stimulus programs that far overshot their target, and now proposals to give certain households with up to $250K income a free $10K.

People understand that these things do matter in a society where we’re all bidding for a limited supply of homes and such. It’s nice to imagine someone having a reduced debt load, but people still think about where that money comes from and how the uneven distribution of that money gives some people (excluding those who paid their loans off early) a financial leg up in places like the competitive housing market.

It’s all connected. The money must come from somewhere, and we’re all operating within the same markets. It’s disingenuous to pretend that there are no consequences for these programs, which IMO is where politicians fall far short of structuring them and pitching them to a wider audience.

[ilyt]

They seem to be way less opposed for government to bail out corporations from same tax money tho.

And I definitely knew many people that oppose to tax break or something for someone that's not in their group all while they enjoy some other tax break without problem and excuse that their one is fine.

[yucky]

    > They seem to be way less opposed for government to bail out corporations from same tax money tho.

Not really. We had nationwide Occupy protests about exactly that, from both sides of the aisle. Not only leftists were fed up, but it also spawned the Tea Party movement on the right.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

Occupy was largely a Leftist movement. And while the Tea Party was created then by Ron Paul, the political machinery that swept into Federal government seats was only after Obama won in 2008. The Tea Party as an entity is completely different between the pre-Obama and post-Obama eras.

[notacoward]

"Hands off my Medicare!" might be the prime example. Or farm subsidies. People who constantly argue that government is too expansive and always incompetent (or evil) literally seem to forget that programs benefiting them are in fact run by that same government.

[meowfly]

I usually make the case that 60% of the US federal budget is entitlement programs with the largest portion being Medicare and Social Security.

Medicare is what I usually focus on on because a person will take out $3 for every dollar they put in.

The real welfare queens are grandpa and grandma, yet in the 80s under Reagan many of those same people were blaming the poor.

If you want to see who has power, look at what programs people are willing to touch. Medicaid is constantly under attack by Republicans. While Medicare is a sacred cow to both Dems and Republicans.

[password4321]

Pardon my ignorance, but how is Social Security an entitlement program? I thought it was supposed to be forced retirement savings... how often do people get out more than was taken?

[notacoward]

It's an entitlement program because what you're entitled to it independently of what you put in. There's no isolation. You don't suddenly get cut off when "your" contribution has been exhausted. You keep drawing from the pool, indefinitely, and in fact this is the common case because official estimates of what people need for retirement (both cost per year and longevity) consistently lag behind reality. The pool "just happens" to be replenished mostly from still-working folks' contributions, but it's still a pool and not individual accounts.

Before anyone else "well actually"s me, as a retiree myself I'm well aware that there is some relationship between what you put in and what you get out. That doesn't change the system's essential nature. It's more of an anti-abuse and anti-depletion measure, similar to raising the retirement age or adding means tests. There's still a big common pool in the middle, and people can still keep drawing from that pool even if they live well beyond the point where their net contribution is negative.

[password4321]

Thanks for clarifying that perspective, I've not considered that before.

It would be nice to see some hard numbers re: net negative contributions.

https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Social_Security_(United_State...

[umvi]

It's a pyramid scheme. You put in $10 over the course of your career, but you take out $20 during retirement (funded by the next generation(s)). If US had shrinking population like Japan instead of growing population it would quickly collapse on itself because each generation takes more than it gives and relies on population growth to not collapse on itself. Or maybe social security rules would change so you have to be 75 before you get any benefits so that most people die before they qualify.

[fallingfrog]

No, the social security taxes levied today go directly to the recipients today, with the plan that when you retire, the next generation will pay for your social security. So it's an entitlement program in the most literal sense.

Saving money in the bank makes sense for an individual, but not a government or a whole country. Because, they can print as much as they need. So why have a big warehouse full of cash when you can just make it later? The limitation to that is that it will cause inflation if you print too much- but if you warehoused the money and then released it later the same thing would happen.

Anyways, the reasons they print money or remove it from the economy are not because they don't have enough, it's because they're trying to moderate the boom/bust business cycle. (Not doing a very good job of it, though.)

[fallingfrog]

By the way, I just want to say that having someone say "pardon my ignorance" gives me hope. I definitely support people who have an open mind! I'm sometimes afraid to ask a question because I'm worried people will downvote or attack me for not knowing the answer. There are tons of things I'm ignorant about.

Anyways, cheers

[zimpenfish]

> the concern about things like student loan forgiveness [...] the extreme cost of the program contributing to an ever increasing list of expenditures.

SLF is a one-off cost (of between $400Bi and 1Ti depending on which plan you subscribe to) though. It's not like, say, the DOD which is currently burning $800Bi a year and rising - I would venture that the people happy to shoot down SLF are equally happy to keep that budget going up.

> People are nervous about the amount of government spending

...going to people they deem undeserving. They're perfectly happy with the amount spend on the DOD, DHS, etc.

[scythe]

Student loan forgiveness is not a one-off cost unless it's bundled with a reform that prevents the same debt from being accumulated again. I support the measure, but I wouldn't have supported it if it hadn't included the income-based repayment modifications that should limit the accumulation of unmanageable student debt in the future — I don't believe this goes far enough either, but that's a different topic. My point is that it's not possible for me to countenance supporting a reform that helps some people and "pulls up the ladder" not making it available to others in the future — generally derided as "borrowing against our children's futures".

[abeppu]

I think there's also a generational aspect to it. Student loan forgiveness is being painted as a cash transfer to younger generations who are somehow lazy, whereas moving cash from younger generations to older (e.g. social security) is sacrosanct.

[josephcsible]

> ...going to people they deem undeserving. They're perfectly happy with the amount spend on the DOD, DHS, etc.

Defense is what the government is supposed to be spending money on. It's a textbook example of a public good.

[zimpenfish]

> It's a textbook example of a public good.

https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar would disagree, for example.

[josephcsible]

I don't see anything in that article that disagrees. Note that by "public good", I mean <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)>, not the "opposite of bad" good.

[kayodelycaon]

> Surely someone, somewhere feels like this

That would be my family when I was growing up. A lot of their beliefs are centered people should work for a living. If someone can't work, they are lazy and working people shouldn't have to pay to support them.

My parents have since moderated their stance on this but my dad still believes this is the way things should be. :(

I've moved away from home and very much do not share their view and don't associate with people like this. I still see this belief often enough to believe it's pretty dang common in the midwest among the lower middle class.

Edit:

I should note, everyone I've talked to do make exceptions for a few people they know.

Most of them are otherwise good, kind people. They abhor the idea of anyone else getting something they haven’t earned.

[sokoloff]

Is it that they abhor the idea of someone else getting something unearned, or that they are frustrated and fed up with the things that they have worked for and earned being denied to them (and only incidentally that they are given to someone else)?

[kayodelycaon]

Let me pull an example I’ve had to deal with.

I have a disability and some of the accommodations are a regular schedule (no weekends/overtime/on call) and being able to take time off unpaid when I’m sick. This is the bare minimum I need to be able to do knowledge work.

I don’t mention this because some people don’t think I deserve special treatment just because I “claim” to have a disability. If I can take time off for “vacations” whenever I want, they should be able to as well.

If I didn’t have these accommodations, I wouldn’t be able to work. Any explanation of how being bipolar severely impacts every aspect of my life is met with “life is hard for everyone”. (Exact quote from my parents, btw.)

To put it quite simply, no one should be given anything I wasn’t given.

When it comes to taxes, they see it as the government taking what they earned and giving it to people who haven’t earned it.

[stcroixx]

This is the default point of view where and when I grew up. Based on the parable 'If you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.'. The independence and freedom offered by the ability to meet one's own needs rather than be at the whims of others you depend on is seen as a much greater good.

[josephcsible]

> can't work

Are you sure you don't mean "can work but won't"?

[kayodelycaon]

Either or. People who can't work are just people who won't work.

For people who can't truly work, it's up to charities to support them. The government shouldn't be taking money from working people for it.

[judge2020]

But what are the consequences? People has similar revelation when the national debt was about to surpass GDP, and yet no economy-ending consequences rose from that. In reality nobody really knows how debt works on a global scale, and those that try to understand it seem to do a fair job at keeping the economy afloat when they join FRB or the multinational conglomerates that have a stake in the US remaining economically stable.

[ss108]

We must live in alternate realities; I am old enough to remember polls from 2016-2018 that showed that rural conservative voters liked the Affordable Care Act and its provisions when it was labeled as such, and hated it when it was labeled as Obamacare.

I have also mostly heard "fairness"-based arguments against student debt relief.

[winReInstall]

The printing press, carried by atlas who needs the dollar?