" Welfare is a form of social insurance. In the private sector we freely accept the validity of life and property insurance. Obviously, the same validity goes for social insurance like unemployment and welfare. The tax money that goes to social insurance buys each one of us a private good: namely, the comfort of being protected in times of adversity. And it buys us a public good as well (although tax critics are loath to admit this). If workers were allowed to unnecessarily starve or die in otherwise temporary setbacks, then our economy would be frequently disrupted. Social insurance allows workers to tide over the rough times, and this establishes a smooth-running economy that benefits us all." The social welfare system protects the majority of Americans from disasters which, as employees, they have no control over.
With a few exceptions, no one wants to go on the "dole." It doesn't pay anywhere nearly enough money, whether it is unemployment, workers' comp, disability, or outright welfare. The American system is rigged in such a way that if you are suffering from a medical disability and you make a legitimate effort to get off the "dole" and fail, you have to start the whole process of applying over again, which is exceptionally difficult and burdensome. Also, if you have health problems, you can't risk not having medical coverage to cover those problems. (Side note: Single-payer health care would solve that problem for a lot of Americans, who could once again try and earn at least part of their own way.)
As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, l ex majoris partis , rule of the majority, is at the heart of every form of republican government. In my experience, those people who complain most about majority rule are: 1) the people who do not want to have to do the hard work that is required to both create and maintain a new majority; 2) those individuals who desire a form of government that most easily permits them to exploit their fellow citizens with the least risk to themselves; 3) those individuals who have arrived at such an extreme and eccentric position as to be permanently unpalatable to the majority of the population.
I would also like to make a historical note: the inability of the governments of the Late Roman Republic, and the French Monarchy from Henry IV onward, to enforce taxation on their richest citizens, were at the root of their downfalls.
The Roman government could not collect rents on the ager publica (public lands) held by many of the members of Rome's One Percent, the patrician and knight (equites) classes. Nor could they evict them from those public lands which Rome's One Percent held in excess of established Roman law. These laws limited the amount of ager publica a single Roman citizen could use to approximately 300 acres. (See Michael J. Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Rome; 2003; especially chapter 3, "A Republic for the Few," for more on this subject.) The Roman government was forced to extort money from their provinces to cover the shortfall, causing a continuous state of unrest in non-Roman Lands, requiring more legions, which cost more money--well, you get the idea.
France under the Louis XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI had a different problem: it had excluded virtually all of the nobility and clergy from any form of taxation. This placed virtually the entire burden of taxation upon the merchants, shopkeepers, and peasants of France.
The nobility represented such a danger to the crown that Louis XIV built Versailles, commanding the nobility to "attend him" at this opulent palace outside Paris, so he could keep an eye on them. He prevented their using their wealth to plot against him by requiring the nobility to maintain a lavish lifestyle while at Versailles.
On the matter of taxes, I have always agreed with the observations of two men from the early Twentieth Century. The first is Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's assessment that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. The second is President Theodore Roosevelt's statement that "Those who are best able to pay taxes, should pay the most."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
