For the poor,the safety net in a shutdown doesn’t feel safe

ap ^ | 1/21/2019 | JULIET LINDERMAN

[varyouga]

There is an entire galaxy between providing basic needs for the poorest people who will walk AMONG US and socialism/communism.

Keeping streets clean and free from disease is not socialsm. It is basic, necessary practicality to cover gaps in the free market. These gaps would grow and destroy the entire market if not addressed. They can be addressed only by culling OR helping people.

We can argue about the scope of the program and what criteria is needed to get it but SOMETHING GUARANTEED is required to prevent the poorest from occupying the street whenever donations are too low.

If you dont like how government spends your money and want to pay less tax, you are free to donate most of your money to good causes and not pay a dime of taxes on it.

Once donations are OVERWHELMING and we have far more help than needed, only then the government not be needed. Until that day, the only civilized choice is to to provide GUARANTEED help for the most vulnerable who are born every day.

You can pay less tax and make the end of welfare come faster by donating as much as you can.

[papertyger]

If you dont like how government spends your money and want to pay less tax, you are free to donate most of your money to good causes and not pay a dime of taxes on it.

It doesn't work that way, sport. You don't get to deduct every dime you give to charity. (I guess you've never given enough dimes to charity to know that fact). Then again, damn near NOTHING works the way you've laid it out.

You have repeatedly conflated public services, which we gladly pay for, with public assistance, which is extorted from taxpayers at the end of a gun. The streets are NOT going to run with sewage without welfare. People are NOT going to drop dead without welfare. Welfare programs ALWAYS grow into monstrosities bearing little to no resemblance to their original mandate. And we DON'T have to demonstrate charitable giving will keep up with your two-faced definition of "need" to do away with welfare.

You are a collectivist/socialist by definition: deal with it. How about getting off FreeRepublic before we have you thrown off.

It would be different if you could carry on a rational discussion, and I've spent three days trying to tell you you can't just pull wild, unprovable, UNLIKELY, assertions out of your ass and expect to persuade anyone here, but you just continue to do so because that's all you've got.

[varyouga]

“It doesn’t work that way, sport. You don’t get to deduct every dime you give to charity. (I guess you’ve never given enough dimes to charity to know that fact).”

You can deduct *direct* donations up to 50% from an income greater than 95-99% of your neighbors (depending on where you live). That is more than what nearly all people can donate.

HOWEVER, if you have even more to donate there are countless other creative ways to help the disadvantaged and at the same time reduce your taxable income to near nothing. I don’t wish to spell them out here for fedzilla to get an ideas. But if you are wealthy enough, I guarantee a tax professional can come up with many ideas based on your own situation.

“The streets are NOT going to run with sewage without welfare. People are NOT going to drop dead without welfare.”

It is 100% as I describe it and has already happened countless times in industrialized nations throughout history. Massive columns of desperate poor living (and crapping) in the street.

In countries without a safety net, that is exactly what occurs to the most desperate and ill RIGHT NOW. I’ve seen this with my own eyes mere months ago. Sick, old and disabled people lying down in the streets in their own filth begging while most people stand around assuming they are just a lazy faker. People with obvious infections and other medical conditions waving them around begging for medical help.

Fakers or not, I saw human feces/urine in every little pocket on the streets. Even though they cleaned the streets every single day, the feces would be back in the morning since most humans “go” several times a day.

When you see this, it is 100% CLEAR that simply letting these people wander and trying to cleanup after them is NOT a solution. We must have a public service that prevents them from being on the streets in the first place.

It is not collectivism, it is not socialism. It is as basic and minimal a service as cleaning public streets so our children and pets do not become diseased