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by freeopinion
4 days ago
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A lot of people on this site grew up lower middle class or below and benefited from the generosity of a lot of other people. But they leveraged that generosity into an education and a skill set that improved their economic security. Then they see schools that provide 3 meals a day to every single student, food stamps, WIC, CHIPS, etc. and think that anybody with any gumption at all could achieve what they achieved even easier. Some people here interact frequently with youth who are completely unmotivated to pull themselves up because they aren't really down. They have food, shelter, a $1200 cell phone with a $75/month data plan, an XBox, a $3k wardrobe, and free taxi service. And nobody is teaching them that all of this luxury comes at a cost. So sometimes it is hard to see the kid in real difficulty. The kid with the $80 discarded phone on the $25/month plan. The kid with the difficulty processing math that isn't just the lazy excuse of all the other students. The kid with no internet at home. The kid trying to look after a younger sibling--not raise them, just helping them survive. The child in desperate isolation. These folks get lost in the sea of people pretending to have a hard life. And the pretenders can slip down into the reality without people noticing. Yes. It's hard to see the bottom clearly after you've climbed some distance. And sometimes you can never see the steeper mountain face that is not the one you climbed. And its easy to get sick of listening to the belly aching. But try volunteering for an after-school club and recognize that the youth in that program are often already in a home life that gives them a life advantage. Not necessarily because of wealth (but maybe), but mostly because of culture. They have caregivers that provide a culture beyond living off of handouts. They might receive a handout, but they are going to use it as an investment to build a better future. Some of the people on this site recognize the difference between engorging and investing. Sometimes they mistake people who don't invest as people who engorge. It's an understandable mistake. |
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The disconnect I see a lot between where I stand, and your average 2026 "proud Democrat" is this: They believe humans are perfectible, and therefore that the plan should be to keep transferring resources, from those who work to those who don't, until such time as we achieve full "equity" of outcomes. So if any people are poor or committing crime, it must mean we just aren't giving them enough.
I question both the wisdom of increasing the tax burden on the workers past a certain point, and whether the goal of getting every disadvantaged person to a successful life is even remotely achievable anyway.
The above is admittedly probably (?) a strawman in that I guess (?) most Democrats today would not be foolish enough to believe 100.00% equity is possible, that every last person in the country can be gotten to "great" quality of life - even with ruinous amounts of welfare expenditure. If that is a strawman, then the only actual debate here is what percentage of people is an acceptable amount to be given up on, to be left where they are, with society telling them "You'll have to do some of the work yourself before you'll get further help."
Also, importantly, it would be nice to make sure we are working with the same set of data. If one side says fine, 2% of people being quite poor is fine, then let's be honest about what the line is, how many are below it, and very importantly how numerous is the actual cohort who is staying there -- it's fine with me if we have 4% in poverty at any given time if half of them are only temporarily poor, and are using the existing resources to get their lives back on track. Even if you believe humans are perfectible, it's unreasonable to expect that no one will ever even temporarily get into a jam.