[Grizzly]

https://www.upworthy.com/if-you-think-only-poor-people-need-welfare-wait-till-you-see-what-really-rich-folks-do-with-it?c=ag

Most of you probably already know quite  a bit of this stuff, but it's good to fill in the details.
(Also, I want to gauge everyone's opinion on this a bit).

[Nuke]

vivisect the rich!

[OverDhill]

No offense to those that are in need and are getting help but....

I kinda took exception with some of her comments. For example when she said that people that take a deduction for mortgage insurance are getting assistance from the government. Geez no wonder this country is so screwed up when the educated liberals can't understand the difference between some one getting to keep some of the money they EARNED by working (because they paid a bank for a loan) and those that get money from the government that they did not work for (welfare, food stamps ect). It also irritates me when people receiving assistance think of it as a pay check or owed to them. It is the generosity of the working people in this country that make it possible.

Where does everyone think this money comes from? The government has no real money. Only the money they tax from working people or borrow that will some day need to be paid back with interest. I dare say there are many middle class people that do not receive any 'assistance' from the state or federal government. They are the ones paying the bill for the entitlement generation. This idea that the poor can some how demand that they have a standard of living owed to them is just crazy.

Remember this. Socialism works as long as you don't run out of the other guys money.

[The E]

Receiving tax breaks and such is exactly the same as receiving money from the state directly.

[karajorma]

Indeed. When you get a job, you know how much money you're going to be taking home. In many ways it's foolish to consider the tax as ever having been your money.

[Mika]

Indeed. When you get a job, you know how much money you're going to be taking home. In many ways it's foolish to consider the tax as ever having been your money.

Well, there's that, but there's no avoiding that when you calculate all the taxes, pension fund things and social security costs and realize that you are actually netting less than half, you might start to wonder whether the state is indeed greedy.

[The E]

I dunno, asking "why am I paying all this money for pensions, health insurance and social security" is a very shortsighted thing to do.

[Scotty]

<sarcastic aside>Perhaps where you come from.  Over here I think not asking "Why am I paying all this money for... health insurance" is a very shortsighted thing to do.</sarcastic aside>

[Mika]

Well, let's see how it's going then:

Public education system: Dysfunctional due to teachers not having sufficient control over the classes. I don't know how Finland manages to get within top 5 in PISA tests, because that sure as hell does not correspond any way to normal life. The best thing here is probably practically free University and High School, but what good does that do to you if there aren't jobs to University level engineers, when too many of them are taken in to begin?

Health care: Currently a bad joke compared to 90s. 9 month waiting times are not uncommon for NMR in the public side (recently tried this myself). I don't know whether it has been intentionally dismantled, but currently we actually don't get what we pay for. The only thing that does work is intensive care. To be able to see a doctor in weekends, you usually have to travel to a city, often requiring trips exceeding 100 km, one-way.

Pension: Actually, most of the people under 35 believe we will never see a trace of the money we put into the system. It was rigged before us by the baby boomer generation, who never collected enough taxes to fund their pensions. We pay their pensions now. And the debt they accumulated over the years. And the regulation they put up back then, making our housing something like three times more expensive than theirs was.

With this sort of background, you really start to think about where the hell is the money I'm paying as taxes going to. Because I seriously cannot see it there where it should be.

[Goober5000]

In many ways it's foolish to consider the tax as ever having been your money.

Taxation is theft.  It's legalized theft, and it has a long historical precedent, but it's still theft.  It is the deprivation of personal property under threat of force.

[karajorma]

Taxation is theft.  It's legalized theft, and it has a long historical precedent, but it's still theft.  It is the deprivation of personal property under threat of force.

So what would you make of the laws against public nudity then? Surely they are also a form of oppression?

Taxes are part of the social contract. There's not much you can do about them in any modern society. The standard of living you would have if you tried to provide yourself with those services would undoubtedly by higher (with the possible exception of the super-rich - Not the 1% but the 0.00001%) and more importantly would lack any kind of legal justification to it. Forget education, health, and pensions, without taxes how the hell could you possibly deal with crime without devolving to a set of independent kangaroo courts?

While I have no problem with people arguing about how the money should be used, I still feel it's rather foolish to pretend the money was yours in the first place. If instead you always assume your salary is what you have after taxes, and treat any rebate as free money, you'd probably be much happier. 

[666maslo666]

All right, lets make one thing clear. Taxation is theft. The state takes your money under the threat of force. And it absolutely is your money the state is taking, without taxes or with lower taxes you would have more money for your personal use. And if you want to argue that it is not your money but your employers money, then it changes nothing on it being theft, only the victim changes.

Social contract is not a contract at all, I didnt sign nothing. It is a figure of speech.

Now dont get me wrong, taxation has some differences from most forms of theft, namely it is distributed roughly equally and not arbitrary in order to not piss of anyone too much, and most importantly, it is considered JUSTIFIABLE theft (really similar to a starving person stealing a bread or something like that, a lesser of two evils), thats the crucial difference. So I am certainly not some anarchist trying to get rid of all taxes, however I also dont lie to myself about forcibly taking someones money magically not being theft.

[General Battuta]

Taxation is theft, much like my use of this sidewalk is trespassing, my access to town water is piracy, and my morning subway commute is grand theft auto. You can voluntarily forgo taxation any time you please! Just forgo your membership in a state with public goods of any type. Go live in the wilderness. At last you will be free from the tyranny of the state.

Taxation is a solution to the free rider problem, and a really good one. The tragedy of the commons makes taxation a game theoretic necessity, and information problems compromise 'voluntary tax' setups like the Lindahl model since agents cannot accurately assess the marginal benefit of public goods.

[Goober5000]

Taxation is theft, much like my use of this sidewalk is trespassing, my access to town water is piracy, and my morning subway commute is grand theft auto. You can voluntarily forgo taxation any time you please! Just forgo your membership in a state with public goods of any type. Go live in the wilderness. At last you will be free from the tyranny of the state.

You're not trespassing on the sidewalk because trespassing is infringement on private property, and the sidewalk is public.  You're not pirating the water because you pay a utility fee for that, on top of any taxes.  And riding the subway is not grand theft auto because a) you're not driving the subway, b) you're not preventing other people from riding the subway, and c) a subway is not an automobile.

Also, you are laying the groundwork for a bait and switch here.  This thread is about welfare, corporate indulgences, and other redistributative schemes -- not public utilities.  Just about everyone who categorizes taxes as a necessary evil accepts them for the purposes of roads, utilities, and transportation.  There is a huge difference -- a huge difference -- between that and taking someone's property and giving it to another arbitrarily.  That's wrong whether the recipient is a poor person or a well-connected financier.

[OverDhill]

Personally I also agree that in any society we need taxes to pay for public services such as police, fire, ect

However entitlements such as food stamps and welfare do not fall into public services. People making the money are paying for people not working and getting money. Having your money taken and spent on roads means you are getting something out of it and as someone said it is actually cheaper for all of us because you are putting your money with everyone else to afford the infrastructure of society.  How can anyone say that the people paying is the same as the people getting a handout? Yes all working people pay taxes but these tax dollars should be spent wisely. About a third of the federal revenue is spent on entitlements.

Quoting a Senator... there is too many people IN the wagon and not enough people pulling it. When you get assistance you put a burden on the people paying the bill. What ever happened to self reliance and pride? My father's generation would have starved to death before taking welfare. How far we have come when people now expect society to hand them a living.

[swashmebuckle]

If you're worried about not getting something out of your tax money, maybe it would help if you thought about it like this: you pay for food stamps so that you don't get mugged on your way back from the grocery store by a starving person. Cops are expensive and they aren't going to stop a person who has nothing to lose from committing a crime. Food is cheap. Like, it grows on trees.

Entitlement programs aren't theft, they're kickass preemptive strikes against theft!

[The E]

However entitlements such as food stamps and welfare do not fall into public services. People making the money are paying for people not working and getting money. Having your money taken and spent on roads means you are getting something out of it and as someone said it is actually cheaper for all of us because you are putting your money with everyone else to afford the infrastructure of society.  How can anyone say that the people paying is the same as the people getting a handout? Yes all working people pay taxes but these tax dollars should be spent wisely. About a third of the federal revenue is spent on entitlements.

This sentiment is at the heart of the matter. It's the fundamental question "What should society do to help people".

I would point out to you, however, that the people who are just slacking off on welfare are certainly in the minority. Most of those receiving assistance from the government are people who, despite being able and willing to work, just aren't capable of making ends meet. If someone has to work two or three jobs and still has to decide whether food or living space is what's going to be paid for this month, if someone has to decide whether or not to get treatment for something because doing so might bankrupt him, that's when you know your system isn't working right.

You are calling social security help "entitlements". Let me ask you, do you have any personal experience with the circumstances that would lead someone to apply for social security help? Have you ever had to do the math on what you're earning, and find out that no, this month you won't be able to get good food every day?

Quoting a Senator... there is too many people IN the wagon and not enough people pulling it. When you get assistance you put a burden on the people paying the bill. What ever happened to self reliance and pride? My father's generation would have starved to death before taking welfare. How far we have come when people now expect society to hand them a living.

You wanna know what happened to self-reliance and pride? The 70s. There is a sharp divide between the generation of my grandparents (Who were reasonably secure that a job they would take would last them a lifetime), to the generation of my parents (Who were raised to expect that they too could find a job they would be able to do their whole life, but who found out that those were no longer offered), to my generation (Who kind of accepted that changing jobs every couple of years is just the way things work now). The basic security your grandparents had and your parents expected, that of having a job that would take care of you for 3 or 4 decades, just does not exist anymore. As a result, the state has to step in to provide relief to those caught in the gears of this brave new world.

[Kolgena]

If you're worried about not getting something out of your tax money, maybe it would help if you thought about it like this: you pay for food stamps so that you don't get mugged on your way back from the grocery store by a starving person. Cops are expensive and they aren't going to stop a person who has nothing to lose from committing a crime. Food is cheap. Like, it grows on trees.

Entitlement programs aren't theft, they're kickass preemptive strikes against theft!

Ditto. Keeping poor people alive by providing basic necessities keeps the whole community safer. Pretty much every revolution in history got started because poor people were starving.

Taxation is necessary, and I'm okay with it. However, I'd prefer if all the tax money was spent efficiently, since it can be tossed around ineffectively for political show or sometimes corrupted away. I guess, for those reasons, it makes sense to argue that governments should collect less taxes: keep the necessities running, but don't give enough so that there's lots at stake when mismanagement happens.

Oh well, I'm from Canada. We're super "socialist" and we're proud of it

[Luis Dias]

Let me ask you, do you have any personal experience with the circumstances that would lead someone to apply for social security help? Have you ever had to do the math on what you're earning, and find out that no, this month you won't be able to get good food every day?

This question doesn't even need an answer.

[Herra Tohtori]

Taxation is theft.  It's legalized theft, and it has a long historical precedent, but it's still theft.  It is the deprivation of personal property under threat of force.

All right, lets make one thing clear. Taxation is theft. The state takes your money under the threat of force. And it absolutely is your money the state is taking, without taxes or with lower taxes you would have more money for your personal use. And if you want to argue that it is not your money but your employers money, then it changes nothing on it being theft, only the victim changes.

Social contract is not a contract at all, I didnt sign nothing. It is a figure of speech.

Now dont get me wrong, taxation has some differences from most forms of theft, namely it is distributed roughly equally and not arbitrary in order to not piss of anyone too much, and most importantly, it is considered JUSTIFIABLE theft (really similar to a starving person stealing a bread or something like that, a lesser of two evils), thats the crucial difference. So I am certainly not some anarchist trying to get rid of all taxes, however I also dont lie to myself about forcibly taking someones money magically not being theft.

Okay, I had to look up the definition of theft to see what would make you think taxation is theft.

theft: the act of stealing; specifically :  the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, library theft and fraud.

Merriam-Webster's definition of theft includes that it must be against the law; Wikipedia's definition is a bit broader but it does include the term rightful owner, which, again, is defined by law.

What I find interesting is your opinion that taxation is theft despite it being legal. You are not the rightful owner of the taxes you pay. It's that simple.


If you consider taxation to be theft despite it being sanctioned by the legislation...

...then logically you should consider killing people in war to be murder, regardless of the fact that it is sanctioned by the government waging the war, and in many cases sanctioned by the international legislation as well.


If you don't, there seems to be a clear double standard here somewhere. And before you say that these are completely different matters - how? If theft is taking a person's property, murder is taking a person's life. If lawfully justified "theft" is still theft, then lawful killing must also be murder.


On the other hand, if you do consider killing in war to be murder, it begs the question why so many people are so annoyed by "their money" being "stolen" and used for social security, but feel perfectly comfortable about the stolen money being used to facilitate murder and support professional murderers.