What Happens When Too Many Voters Support Redistribution?

Townhall.com ^ | October 13, 2014 | Daniel J. Mitchell

[SMARTY]

Americans have to stop voting for people who promise them free stuff.

Because it AIN'T free at all. The Liberals spend like there's no tomorrow... it's killing us.

How about some campaign ads with a ‘regular Joe’ out there telling everyone to leave his paycheck alone?

Maybe stand there with his pockets turned inside-out and begging for a break, already!!??

[ex91B10]

Hard to believe that that series I’d almost forty years old...(heavy sigh).

[Pearls Before Swine]

What happens?

In a word, collapse. The nuts and the takers bring everyone down with them.

I don’t know why so many leftists think Cloward-Piven is a good thing. They’ll be much worse off but they’ll have company.

[Boogieman]

You’re forgetting supply and demand. You would essentially be creating a whole lot of money out of thin air, because there was no productivity put into the economy in order to back that $30k income for every individual. If the money supply expands faster than productivity increases, then you get devaluation of the currency (and inflation of prices). So, most people would end up no better off than before they got that “free” $30k.

[Sequoyah101]

Because most people either have something for nothing and can’t live without it and enough of the rest hope they can get something for noting and have not been taught that getting it is wrong.....

YOUR SUGGESTION DOES NOT MATTER, IT WILL NOT WORK ANYMORE.

[Buckeye McFrog]

People who argue for GMI say it would actually be cheaper than administering our current assortment of welfare programs with all of the attendant bureaucratic and administrative costs.

Forgetting that those came into being in the first place because no one believed that you could just hand money to poor people and not have them throw most of it over the bar.

[Buckeye McFrog]

You would essentially be creating a whole lot of money out of thin air, because there was no productivity put into the economy in order to back that $30k income for every individual. If the money supply expands faster than productivity increases, then you get devaluation of the currency (and inflation of prices).

In the Liberal worldview, productivity has been rising for 2+ decades and GRRRRREEEEEEDY Corporations have just been pocketing it all rather than passing it on to their workers.

So in their minds they'd just be setting things straight.

[Arrowhead1952]

[muir_redwoods]

Only about 30% supported the Revolution back in the late 18th century. I’ll stand with 30% of us today.

[Kaslin]

We are not going to have a landslide if many from our side make the same mistake they did in 2006 and stayed home or voted third Party, because they wanted to punish the GOP. What did that gain us? Nothing

[muir_redwoods]

By food, buy silver, buy ammo. Keep your guns clean and find neighbors you can trust. If it goes bad, it’ll go really bad

[Resolute Conservative]

Make no mistake I will too, but it gives pause that so many are weak and timid when it comes to the point action is required. It is just a sad commentary.

[Armando Guerra]

Guaranteed Minimum Income. One of the many very bad economic ideas pushed by.......Richard Nixon!

According to Cato: “The federal government spent $3.9 trillion in 2013, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Transfers were the largest spending activity at $1.98 trillion, followed by purchases at $571 billion, aid to the states at $510 billion, interest at $414 billion, and compensation at $407 billion."

Let’s see, $1.98 trillion divided by 112 million households is $17,679 currently being provided per household on transfers without even counting the compensation of all the staff administering that bureaucracy. Additionally, consider the disincentives of current means-tested benefits. I have personally heard people say that they had to quit a job after receiving notice that they would now lose benefits. The loss of benefits would have exceed the income from working. How many single-parent households are encouraged because of the loss of benefits if they were married to the baby-daddy? Maybe a minimum income wouldn’t be so bad after all. I'm starting to consider that it might be preferable to the myriad of welfare programs we have and the resulting disincentives.

[muir_redwoods]

I agree, it’s very sad. I can’t understand why everybody isn’t thinking about a potential shooting war but I guess it’s the old story about boiling a frog.

[Boogieman]

Well, the great thing about the economy is that it doesn’t care what is in your mind, my mind, or the lefties’ minds. It will respond to market forces the same way, regardless of what we think about it.

[TalBlack]

“I suspect less than 30% of the population has the cajones to stand up and fight back.”

If 15% of the population of this nation ever decides to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats then EVERYONE in this nation will have a HUGE and immediate problem that they'll not be able to ignore..

[ripley]

“We get Obama snd the devastation he brings.”

How disgustingly true.

IMHO

[Theodore R.]

The American people support redistribution because they foolishly think that the distributions will go to them.

[Theodore R.]

Also it’s simple “faith” in the “goodness” of “government” “officials”.

[pepsionice]

I would suggest a different scenario. When redistribution hits full-throttle...someone will stand up and simply say....OK, so we got the money....let’s just write the tax refund check out and give each guy who makes less than $30k a year a full-refund check for $8,000 (just my rough number guess). Simple...easy....and takes a minute to engage the IRS program.

But then the middle guys will stand up and say....Oh, well....we need these programs and these 100,000 middle-guys to help make the programs occur.

At that point, the public will stand there and realize the whole gimmick. It’s not about the individual getting the redistribution. IT NEVER WAS. It’s about someone in the middle acting as the controller, and only supporting their programs for their people.

It’s kinda like the fake charity foundations that exist now....five million gets taken in....two million go toward operational costs...one million toward special fees and handling, and in the end, only forty-percent of the five million goes toward real help. That’s all the government is supporting....fake help.

I’ll even cite the best example. DC has a policy of distribution of city revenue for charity foundations supporting public help (not city parks, but actual private/public foundations). So a city council member starts a foundation for softball for the lesser of DC’s society (kids in southeast). It was around $700,000 to be sent onto this guy’s foundation. Almost ALL of the funds go to the guy in the end....spent on an upscale motorcycle, golf clubs, resort golf club fees, and weekend trips to golf. It took almost two years for the story to unravel, and the city council guy had to resign, and go off for federal time. There’s a fine assigned by the court....as far as I know....he has yet to pay more than a quarter of the fine, and locals say he’ll never come up with the rest. Imagine $700,000 in any local softball league for kids in your local town? That’s covered all the balls, bats and gloves for ten years, for two thousand kids.

Redistribution? It’s simply a funnel built into the system to siphon off privates for middle-guys. Nothing more. If we really cared, we’d just write checks via IRS, and for some reason....they just don’t like that idea.