Although I am slightly late to the party here, there are a couple of points that I wish to address.
First, somebody far earlier made comments basically indicating that providing welfare in general was a bad thing. Things like needles and condoms and the like. Many of these types of assistance are not designed to spend your hard earned tax dollars but rather to save them. For instance, tax money provides a free condom (<$.01 most likely in bulk), and this prevents another child from drawing more money from the system. Or perhaps prevents someone from draining valuable medical resources from society because of an STD, etc.
Second, Jerboy made comments regarding how his tax dollars were supporting nearby schools. Although, I can't specifically speak about his background, I can assure you that very few people could actually support their own educational system based on the amount of tax that they pay. Therefor, if we removed this spreading of the wealth, it is quite possible that you could end up on the wrong side of the cutoff.
Third, for those who are interested in providing as little assistance to people as possible, your investment in the education of poor children is quite possibly the most bang for your buck. Many studies have shown the direct correlation between education and the ability to be a productive member of society.
Fourth, there have been several comments about how "us rich folk shouldn't be supporting poor people". The graduated tax system attempts to promote a healthy middle class which is essential to our net quality of living as a society. There are many examples in history of divided class systems where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is generally a bad thing as it does not promote devolopment of infrastructure and drive advancement in technology at nearly the pace or a society with a healthy middle class. The main problem derives from a net hoarding effect. If less than 1% of the people have all the money, but they are unable to spend it, it sits in a bank or a vault or what have you. Money sitting in a vault does not generate wealth, rather it is the exchange of money that generates wealth by causing the exchange of goods and services. A single dollar bill that changes hands 5 times has generated 5 dollars worth of wealth. An extremely poor population is not able to generate a large amount of wealth because it has very little money to trade for goods and services. This problem is additionally compounded by the fact that what little money they do have is generally spent on consumable goods that do nothing to expand the production possibilty curve of the society(i.e. investments in manufacturing or construction equipment which allows us to produce and build more efficiently). Furthermore, having this healthy middle class is good for the rich. Take Bill Gates for example. He did not get rich because there were a few thousand people around who could afford to buy Windows, rather, he was able to market a product to a huge mass of people who had enough discretionary income to purchase it. I highly recommend to anyone interested in debating the finer points of our economic policies to at least study macro and micro economics at the introductory level.
Finally, to address the argument that "if these lazy people would just get off their arss and find a job we wouldn't have a problem". It is awfully nice to live in a society with an economy that has been so great for the last 10 years that most anyone who would like to get a job can. People forget all too quickly the economic downturns. I believe that it was around the mid 80's when the last mild recession bit the economy and we had quite a rise in unemployment. Many of those who are laid off during these times are not necessarily lazy, uneducated, or unqualified to work. In fact, most of these individuals worked quite hard to find work, but there simply was none available. Of course, this can be taken to the extreme by going back to the great depression where there were tons of people who were all hard workers and qualified who simply could not find work. Talk to anyone from this era about their experiences. I don't think that you will find too many people that say, "I didn't want to support my family, and it was just so nice laying around the house that I decided not to work, by the way...would you mind handing me the crack pipe over there?". The fact that today most people who would like to work can, and have been able to do so for almost sixty years, is a tribute to the ideas and research that has been done in the field of macroeconomics and to our economic policies as a whole (Although I will certainly admit that they are not all perfect).
Sorry about how long that got....sheesh. Now I remember why I don't get involved in these debates.
P.S. One last thing, this all got started about how some kids who might not be as well off were getting a bone thrown to them. For the love of (insert your favorite deity), your financial status as a child is nothing of your own doing. Kids who have the misfortune of being born into a bad family or financial circumstance should be given as much opportunity as possible to allow them to grow into being able to support themselves. Spend a little time on the pediatrics floor of a hospital that serves a poor area and then come back and try to defend how a little child that was molested, not fed or clothed and beaten should be denied a cookie so some rich shmuck could save a fraction of a penny. We could debate the levels of qualification for these types of programs, but I certainly don't think anyone could present a very solid case for the abolishment entirely. Today, I can afford my own cookies. Would I have been able to had I been denied an education? Perhaps some raw talent would have permitted it, however, it sure would have been a lot harder.
First, somebody far earlier made comments basically indicating that providing welfare in general was a bad thing. Things like needles and condoms and the like. Many of these types of assistance are not designed to spend your hard earned tax dollars but rather to save them. For instance, tax money provides a free condom (<$.01 most likely in bulk), and this prevents another child from drawing more money from the system. Or perhaps prevents someone from draining valuable medical resources from society because of an STD, etc.
Second, Jerboy made comments regarding how his tax dollars were supporting nearby schools. Although, I can't specifically speak about his background, I can assure you that very few people could actually support their own educational system based on the amount of tax that they pay. Therefor, if we removed this spreading of the wealth, it is quite possible that you could end up on the wrong side of the cutoff.
Third, for those who are interested in providing as little assistance to people as possible, your investment in the education of poor children is quite possibly the most bang for your buck. Many studies have shown the direct correlation between education and the ability to be a productive member of society.
Fourth, there have been several comments about how "us rich folk shouldn't be supporting poor people". The graduated tax system attempts to promote a healthy middle class which is essential to our net quality of living as a society. There are many examples in history of divided class systems where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is generally a bad thing as it does not promote devolopment of infrastructure and drive advancement in technology at nearly the pace or a society with a healthy middle class. The main problem derives from a net hoarding effect. If less than 1% of the people have all the money, but they are unable to spend it, it sits in a bank or a vault or what have you. Money sitting in a vault does not generate wealth, rather it is the exchange of money that generates wealth by causing the exchange of goods and services. A single dollar bill that changes hands 5 times has generated 5 dollars worth of wealth. An extremely poor population is not able to generate a large amount of wealth because it has very little money to trade for goods and services. This problem is additionally compounded by the fact that what little money they do have is generally spent on consumable goods that do nothing to expand the production possibilty curve of the society(i.e. investments in manufacturing or construction equipment which allows us to produce and build more efficiently). Furthermore, having this healthy middle class is good for the rich. Take Bill Gates for example. He did not get rich because there were a few thousand people around who could afford to buy Windows, rather, he was able to market a product to a huge mass of people who had enough discretionary income to purchase it. I highly recommend to anyone interested in debating the finer points of our economic policies to at least study macro and micro economics at the introductory level.
Finally, to address the argument that "if these lazy people would just get off their arss and find a job we wouldn't have a problem". It is awfully nice to live in a society with an economy that has been so great for the last 10 years that most anyone who would like to get a job can. People forget all too quickly the economic downturns. I believe that it was around the mid 80's when the last mild recession bit the economy and we had quite a rise in unemployment. Many of those who are laid off during these times are not necessarily lazy, uneducated, or unqualified to work. In fact, most of these individuals worked quite hard to find work, but there simply was none available. Of course, this can be taken to the extreme by going back to the great depression where there were tons of people who were all hard workers and qualified who simply could not find work. Talk to anyone from this era about their experiences. I don't think that you will find too many people that say, "I didn't want to support my family, and it was just so nice laying around the house that I decided not to work, by the way...would you mind handing me the crack pipe over there?". The fact that today most people who would like to work can, and have been able to do so for almost sixty years, is a tribute to the ideas and research that has been done in the field of macroeconomics and to our economic policies as a whole (Although I will certainly admit that they are not all perfect).
Sorry about how long that got....sheesh. Now I remember why I don't get involved in these debates.
P.S. One last thing, this all got started about how some kids who might not be as well off were getting a bone thrown to them. For the love of (insert your favorite deity), your financial status as a child is nothing of your own doing. Kids who have the misfortune of being born into a bad family or financial circumstance should be given as much opportunity as possible to allow them to grow into being able to support themselves. Spend a little time on the pediatrics floor of a hospital that serves a poor area and then come back and try to defend how a little child that was molested, not fed or clothed and beaten should be denied a cookie so some rich shmuck could save a fraction of a penny. We could debate the levels of qualification for these types of programs, but I certainly don't think anyone could present a very solid case for the abolishment entirely. Today, I can afford my own cookies. Would I have been able to had I been denied an education? Perhaps some raw talent would have permitted it, however, it sure would have been a lot harder.
