Sure.
- Premise 1: Poverty, hunger, lack of shelter and access to basic necessities happen mostly due to the poorest having a lack of resources/money.
- Premise 2: The rich people have many more resources/money than necessary to provide for their basic necessities and comfort.
- Premise 3: If the government taxes the rich people, it has access to their resources/money.
- Premise 4: If the government has access to their resources/money, the government distributes these resources/money to the poorest.
- Premise 5: If the government distributes theese resources/money to the poorest, the lack of resources/money of the poorest will be reduced.
- Conclusion: Therefore, if the government taxes the rich people, the lack of resources/money of the poorest will be reduced.
Ok, so your disagreement is that you presume that if we heavily tax the rich people, they will no longer produce the wealth that we are using (through taxation) to feed the poor, is this correct?
There are many ways to address this, but I would like to make sure we are on the same page before I continue.
Premise 1 assumes some people are doing little or anything for their own upkeep. Other people, who are require to take care of their own upkeep; pay taxes, have to work and do not have the luxury of perpetual vacation. If the workers have to support those who do not work, they get a pay cut. That is not fair. Charity may be a better way, so you can meet those you help and feel good.
Social Welfare used to be called the social safety net, designed to help people who had a setback such as loss of jobs, work injury, medical needs, etc. Starting in the 1970's it morphed into social safety hammock, where people over many generations never left. They knew all the loopholes to get the most, such as having lots of children, and not getting married. Married was penalized. Marriage is often a path out of poverty. Married in poverty is 5% and the total in poverty is 11.5%. It makes sense, husband and wife can both work and step above easier.
If you look in America, the DNC has waged the War Against Poverty, for almost 60 years and the rate of poverty has not changed, even with spending exceeding $10 trillion. It is a money pit that does not solve the problem. It perpetuates the problem. Another 50 years will not change anything. One reason is if one is given a choice of working a minimum wage job to get by, or staying home and collecting; have others pay for you, common senses say why struggle, when I get the same staying home lounging in the safety hammock. It was not originally that way. It changed with union government jobs and government job growth; justifies these jobs.
Under President Trump, just before COVID, he got the poverty rate to the lowest level in 50 years. This was not due to a free ride approach. Trump increased employment among the poorest demographics; women, blacks, hispanics, and build up a sense of hope and personal responsibility, due to the opportunities to be self reliant. People want to work if there are good jobs. This is why sending factory jobs overseas was a mistake and impoverish too many people, A union factornworker was a good job and could support a family and own a home. Now many are casualties of the war of poverty due to friendly fire from their own government.
Under Biden and Harris; during the wind down of COVID; people were getting paid not to work. If you had a low to medium paying job, it made more economic sense to collect, and not work for the same money. That free ride messed up the system; supply bottlenecks, which then led to the persistent inflation.
There is an old saying, you can give a man a fish and he is full today but hungry tomorrow. Or you can teach them to fish they can feed themselves, forever.
I remember a few years ago I did a calculation. In the state of Connecticut which has a generous welfare program, a single mother of two would get up to about $45,000 of value per year, in that expensive state; housing, food, medical, phone, utilities, etc. If she was given that money directly, she would be able to leave poverty. She would be called the middle class. But the way it is done, is the bureaucracy takes enough of a cut, she technically stays in poverty, and stays counted as poor. This is why things do not change. There are too many middlemen leaching off the poor, and thereby keeping them poor, so they can leach. Until that is fixed, it is waste to add money to the money pit approach.
What I thought would be a good idea, would be to build cities for the poor, while having the poor help to build each others houses. The idea is to lower costs by having those who stand to benefit, donate their time and learn useful skills; trades. It is not about Government hiring a large corporation to build the houses, so they can move it, doing nothing. The idea is to cut out the middleman, as much as possible, so they can get more of the middleman's share, to help themselves. Teaching the man to fish with real life experience that they benefit from.
As far a taxing the rich to give to the poor, money giving to the government gets a -20% rate of return; interesting on national debt. Twenty cents to the dollar goes down the toilet for each dollar taken.. Wouldn't it be better if the poor also got that? A better way would for corporation to directly help the poor and cut out wasteful Government. Instead of paying taxes, they pay the equivalent to the poor through goods and services, allowing their ingenuity and economy of scale to make it worthwhile for both the poor and company.
Grocery stores instead of paying taxes, feed the poor that value. If Washington touches it, 20% is gone. The business buys wholesale and can give the poor, half way between retail and wholesale, which is like $1.10 value per $1.00, while also making their own profit. This is better than $0.80. This is good for their community and is good for business.
