Benefit from the Stimulus Bill

[Kanastrous]

That seems incredibly selfish and short sighted. I suppose people who don't pay income taxes shouldn't be allowed to use public facilities paid for by those taxes either? It's not like they contributed anything to it, right?

I did not suggest that people who don't pay income tax shouldn't have access to public facilities and benefits. Only that giving someone a 'refund' for a specific form of taxes they didn't pay (payroll/income taxes) seems undesirable.

There are easily-understood arguments in favor of promoting equal access to infrastructure, education, and medical care (probably some other services, too); there are conspicuous public benefits to doing so.

Handing "back" money that was never paid in? That seems like something else altogether.

[General Zod]

I did not suggest that people who don't pay income tax shouldn't have access to public facilities and benefits. Only that giving someone a 'refund' for a specific form of taxes they didn't pay (payroll/income taxes) seems undesirable.

You didn't have to suggest it, but it logically follows from your premise. Denying benefits from taxes to people who may not necessarily pay income taxes opens up a rather nasty can of worms.

There are easily-understood arguments in favor of promoting equal access to infrastructure, education, and medical care (probably some other services, too); there are conspicuous public benefits to doing so.
Handing "back" money that was never paid in? That seems like something else altogether.

Then why not explain how it's different instead of arbitrarily saying it is and assuming everyone should accept this premise?

[Kanastrous]

I did not suggest that people who don't pay income tax shouldn't have access to public facilities and benefits. Only that giving someone a 'refund' for a specific form of taxes they didn't pay (payroll/income taxes) seems undesirable.

You didn't have to suggest it, but it logically follows from your premise. Denying benefits from taxes to people who may not necessarily pay income taxes opens up a rather nasty can of worms.

Except that I didn't suggest denying them access to benefits from tax-supported programs or infrastructure, only access to 'refund' checks from a segment of funds into which they didn't pay.

There are easily-understood arguments in favor of promoting equal access to infrastructure, education, and medical care (probably some other services, too); there are conspicuous public benefits to doing so.
Handing "back" money that was never paid in? That seems like something else altogether.

Then why not explain how it's different instead of arbitrarily saying it is and assuming everyone should accept this premise?

It isn't evident that there is a difference between person A who pays payroll/income taxes, and person B who doesn't, when it comes to monies being kicked back out of that fund? This is probably where a lack of education in economics is hurting me, but the difference appears to be self-evident on its face.

[LMSx]

It isn't evident that there is a difference between person A who pays payroll/income taxes, and person B who doesn't, when it comes to monies being kicked back out of that fund? This is probably where a lack of education in economics is hurting me, but the difference appears to be self-evident on its face.

My understanding is that all tax revenue gets thrown into a general fund which is then split up. If Person A pays $10,000 and Person B pays $2,000, the government now has $12,000 regardless of the proportion from income tax versus other federal taxes.

Considering it's called the "Make Work Pay" credit, I'm assuming Person B in this situation is a worker paying payroll taxes as well. Not just Person A.

As long as Person B (who pays no income tax) paid more then $500 in taxes, he's getting money back that he paid in. For a full time worker, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

[General Zod]

Except that I didn't suggest denying them access to benefits from tax-supported programs or infrastructure, only access to 'refund' checks from a segment of funds into which they didn't pay.

If they don't pay into the tax supported programs or infrastructure, then it's the exact same logic.

It isn't evident that there is a difference between person A who pays payroll/income taxes, and person B who doesn't, when it comes to monies being kicked back out of that fund? This is probably where a lack of education in economics is hurting me, but the difference appears to be self-evident on its face.

No it's not, because we already have a number of programs that pay out money from public coffers to people who haven't necessarily put anything in. Many of which provide a positive benefit to society. (Federal education grants, anyone?)

[Kanastrous]

Except that I didn't suggest denying them access to benefits from tax-supported programs or infrastructure, only access to 'refund' checks from a segment of funds into which they didn't pay.

If they don't pay into the tax supported programs or infrastructure, then it's the exact same logic.

I would endorse their access to programs and infrastructure meant for the general public's use because they can't make whatever contributions they make, or hope to reach a point where they can do so without access to that public infrastructure, which simultaneously helps support everyone else's ability to do the same with whatever degree of success they're doing it.

Handing out checks intended for discretionary personal spending isn't the same thing, when not everybody has contributed to the account on which they're drawn.

It isn't evident that there is a difference between person A who pays payroll/income taxes, and person B who doesn't, when it comes to monies being kicked back out of that fund? This is probably where a lack of education in economics is hurting me, but the difference appears to be self-evident on its face.

No it's not, because we already have a number of programs that pay out money from public coffers to people who haven't necessarily put anything in. Many of which provide a positive benefit to society. (Federal education grants, anyone?)

Well, I indicated above that I favor access to positive beneficial public programs and assets that offer the kind of potential you point out. But I still don't find that granting access to programs and infrastructure is similar to just handing out a check to be spent however wisely or foolishly the recipient chooses to spend it, if the recipient didn't pay taxes along with the rest of us.

[Kanastrous]

It isn't evident that there is a difference between person A who pays payroll/income taxes, and person B who doesn't, when it comes to monies being kicked back out of that fund? This is probably where a lack of education in economics is hurting me, but the difference appears to be self-evident on its face.

My understanding is that all tax revenue gets thrown into a general fund which is then split up. If Person A pays $10,000 and Person B pays $2,000, the government now has $12,000 regardless of the proportion from income tax versus other federal taxes.

The Feds may not care specifically where it came from, but it seems to me that the people from whom they're extracting it should.

Considering it's called the "Make Work Pay" credit, I'm assuming Person B in this situation is a worker paying payroll taxes as well. Not just Person A.

That's what sticks, for me. Both workers pay the payroll taxes. Only one has to pay the additional income taxes. Yet both are to be granted equal payments from a fund into which one worker contributed while the other did not.

Even though money is basically fungible (isn't it?) there are two basic streams feeding that pool, and one class of worker contributes to both while another contributes only to one. When it comes to drinking from that pool it seems fair to me that the bigger contributor have first drinking rights.

As long as Person B (who pays no income tax) paid more then $500 in taxes, he's getting money back that he paid in. For a full time worker, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

I don't mean to suggest that the worker paying only payroll taxes is a non-contributor. Sure he's contributing. But his contribution isn't in the same class as the worker paying income taxes on top of payroll taxes, and it seems unfair that his benefit - when it comes to handing out cash money, as opposed to programs or infrastructure - should be the same.

Look, it's entirely possible that this looks wrong to me because I don't properly understand the policy. Maybe there's a perspective from which it looks fair and just, but I'm not seeing it from there, yet.

[Knife]

The Feds may not care specifically where it came from, but it seems to me that the people from whom they're extracting it should.

That opens up a new can of worms Should all the income tax money from San Fransico not be alloted to military matters since all the anti war dudes tend to conglomerate there? Should the taxes of libertarians only go to corporate tax cuts? You don't get to choose where your tax money goes except in the case of actually voting your representative or other such ballot votes.

Giving money back to the poor to 'spend' is STIMULUS which is the whole freaking point. Chances are the poor folk will run out and buy the latest crap from China at a walmart and thus put that money into the economy propping up the carcass that it is.

That's what sticks, for me. Both workers pay the payroll taxes. Only one has to pay the additional income taxes. Yet both are to be granted equal payments from a fund into which one worker contributed while the other did not.

Holy crap your stuck on this "I pay X and he pays X-Y. Why should he get more money back than me?" dynamic. They want to give back to the poor-ish on this, let them buy garbage, let them pay off some bills, let them throw it at their late mortgage. Not those who are less hurt or unaffected by the recession, it's not rocket science man.

Even though money is basically fungible (isn't it?) there are two basic streams feeding that pool, and one class of worker contributes to both while another contributes only to one. When it comes to drinking from that pool it seems fair to me that the bigger contributor have first drinking rights.

*sigh*

I don't mean to suggest that the worker paying only payroll taxes is a non-contributor. Sure he's contributing. But his contribution isn't in the same class as the worker paying income taxes on top of payroll taxes, and it seems unfair that his benefit - when it comes to handing out cash money, as opposed to programs or infrastructure - should be the same.

Look, it's entirely possible that this looks wrong to me because I don't properly understand the policy. Maybe there's a perspective from which it looks fair and just, but I'm not seeing it from there, yet.

You look like a heartless bastard out for 'yours and screw everyone else', is what you look like. If you are hurting less than the other guy in the room, then the help should go to the other guy, not you, no matter how much you put into the system. What you are talking about is the same mentality that got us here, getting yours and fuck everyone else.

[aerius]

Think of it as paying for insurance, everyone pays into the pool according to their risk premiums, but if you don't need the services you don't get any of your money back.

[Kanastrous]

You look like a heartless bastard out for 'yours and screw everyone else', is what you look like. If you are hurting less than the other guy in the room, then the help should go to the other guy, not you, no matter how much you put into the system. What you are talking about is the same mentality that got us here, getting yours and fuck everyone else.

Really I don't think that either of us ought to be getting handed checks, for the sake of being handed checks. And I'm perfectly content to see that deserving people in need of help get the help they need; I just question whether someone who's kind of demonstrated an inability to manage cash should just be handed more cash to mis-manage (which is what's implied by your observation regarding running out and buying Wal-Mart crap, and at the same time looks to me like a fair description of the major banks and Wall Street).

If it's to be handled like charity handouts, let's just call it a charity handout and divorce it from the notion that people are getting something back on something they paid, when we collectively don't pay on equal terms. I think there's value in acknowledging charity for what it is, for both the donors and the recipients.

[Kanastrous]

Think of it as paying for insurance, everyone pays into the pool according to their risk premiums, but if you don't need the services you don't get any of your money back.

Isn't that basically Unemployment Insurance? I think every state in the unions has that already.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Particularly stupid in this attitude is this perception that people have that they can just wall themselves off and have no obligations or stakeholding in the community. If you oppose stimulus for the poor, that is your prerogative. But you will also suffer from the consequences of greater incidence of crime (and therefore personal risk to your health and property) and economic depression, depriving you of what could have been greater opportunities for investment and quality of life. In other words, YOU ALWAYS PAY. You can choose to pony up tax revenue for what could be productive collective economic and social improvements, or you may bare the opportunity cost of things being shittier and in poorer condition. There is a significant likelihood that you could suffer more by the latter choice than the former. Like our families, who to a certain extent we are stuck with, no matter how shitty they are at times - human society is a somewhat obligatory community, from which you have extracted benefits and engaged in relationships your entire life, and to which you owe obligations.

[Kanastrous]

I am not suggesting that anyone ought to wall themselves off from the larger community. Of course there's a stake in assisting poorer people; the difficulty is in the idea of handing out cash to a general class of recipients who seem to have demonstrated that they aren't particularly good at managing what you're proposing to hand out. Hungry people should be assisted with access to food; heck, if we were talking about distributing $500 in food stamps rather than $500 in cash I would not have found anything to which I could object. At least that way there can be some degree of confidence that the money's being expended for a vital benefit, as opposed to rolling the dice on it being pissed away down the WalMart drain, as Knife noted some proportion of it may very well be.

When the state has to stand in loco parentis to its grown-up citizens, it has both a right and a responsibility to act out the parental role.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I am not suggesting that anyone ought to wall themselves off from the larger community. Of course there's a stake in assisting poorer people; the difficulty is in the idea of handing out cash to a general class of recipients who seem to have demonstrated that they aren't particularly good at managing what you're proposing to hand out. Hungry people should be assisted with access to food; heck, if we were talking about distributing $500 in food stamps rather than $500 in cash I would not have found anything to which I could object. At least that way there can be some degree of confidence that the money's being expended for a vital benefit, as opposed to rolling the dice on it being pissed away down the WalMart drain, as Knife noted some proportion of it may very well be.

When the state has to stand in loco parentis to its grown-up citizens, it has both a right and a responsibility to act out the parental role.

I actually agree with you. Perversely, the spread of right-wing domestic political and economic philosophy throughout the body politic has made the use of government intervention even less effective, by appealing to a simplistic desire to cut-out autonomous government bureaucrats who would manage more detailed programs like you discuss in favor of "letting people spend money according to what they know."

[D.Turtle]

I am not suggesting that anyone ought to wall themselves off from the larger community. Of course there's a stake in assisting poorer people; the difficulty is in the idea of handing out cash to a general class of recipients who seem to have demonstrated that they aren't particularly good at managing what you're proposing to hand out. Hungry people should be assisted with access to food; heck, if we were talking about distributing $500 in food stamps rather than $500 in cash I would not have found anything to which I could object. At least that way there can be some degree of confidence that the money's being expended for a vital benefit, as opposed to rolling the dice on it being pissed away down the WalMart drain, as Knife noted some proportion of it may very well be.

When the state has to stand in loco parentis to its grown-up citizens, it has both a right and a responsibility to act out the parental role.

Well, something had to be offered in order to get the Republican votes required (as stated in another thread, 60 votes in Senate is required for this type of bill - it is not to stop a threatened filibuster). This concession was obviously tax cuts (and also cutting some other stuff). Now, if you have to offer tax cuts in order to get the votes you need, then the important stuff is no longer if you are offering tax cuts, but instead what type of tax cut you are offering. The democrats chose one that would help as many people as possible and also benefit those with less more than those with lots.

Seems the best way to do it.

Oh and incidentally, from the opening post:

Food stamp payments: The bill includes a provision would increase food stamp payments by 12%, so a family of four would see an additional $71 on top of the $588 per month they receive currently. Estimated cost: $16.5 billion.

[Darth Wong]

I am not suggesting that anyone ought to wall themselves off from the larger community. Of course there's a stake in assisting poorer people; the difficulty is in the idea of handing out cash to a general class of recipients who seem to have demonstrated that they aren't particularly good at managing what you're proposing to hand out. Hungry people should be assisted with access to food; heck, if we were talking about distributing $500 in food stamps rather than $500 in cash I would not have found anything to which I could object. At least that way there can be some degree of confidence that the money's being expended for a vital benefit, as opposed to rolling the dice on it being pissed away down the WalMart drain, as Knife noted some proportion of it may very well be.

When the state has to stand in loco parentis to its grown-up citizens, it has both a right and a responsibility to act out the parental role.

All of the government apparatus required to administer what you propose would be decried as "unnecessary bureaucracy" and attacked relentlessly.

[Kanastrous]

I don't know; is there really that much more oversight work involved in issuing food stamps in place of checks? The food stamps approach is kind of self-administering, in the sense that by their nature they can only be used in one particular way...

...and, thanks for pointing out the coverage of food stamps in the OP, Turtle. I did miss that.

[General Zod]

I don't know; is there really that much more oversight work involved in issuing food stamps in place of checks? The food stamps approach is kind of self-administering, in the sense that by their nature they can only be used in one particular way...

I take it you're unaware of people selling food stamps (even the electronic debit card versions) so they can get money to buy things other than food then? I don't think there's any kind of regulations in place to prevent that kind of abuse (it'd be damn hard to enforce), but food stamps are generally seen as a stop gap measure over a period of time, as opposed to a one time issuance, so they have to have people to manage the case loads of everyone who applies for them. They also have to have people to investigate people's claims so they can make sure they qualify to receive food stamps, make sure people aren't trying to game the system, etc.

[Kanastrous]

I figured that like any other benefit there's opportunity for fraud with food stamps, although I wasn't aware that there is a case-worker role in managing that kind of program. Hadn't considered the investigative/enforcement burden either, but it seems to me that the fact that this would be a one-time issuance to a broad segment of the population based upon their tax records should allow us to dispense with the case-worker and investigative overhead (at least, it shouldn't require any more of those costs than the existing $500 cash offering would impose).

If someone chooses to illicitly cash out their food stamps to buy, say, cheetos, bourbon or meth, well, there has to be some point at which one stands back and says, once handed the help you're responsible for what you choose to do, with it.

[Darth Wong]

Food stamps are also traded for drugs. The fact is that you can't really prevent poor people from acting like, well, stereotypical poor people. Not all of them fit the stereotype, but plenty of them do. And let's face it, that's what we're really trying to do when we propose extra control of how they spend the money we give them.

We look at the behaviour of the typical poor person and we wring our hands in frustration, because so many of them seem to have no interest in improving their status, or even looking halfway respectable. I've lived near welfare housing before; the amount of money they spend on beer alone would be enough to pay for decent-looking clothes and training courses so they could maybe better themselves, look respectable, and attend a job interview without being turned away at the door. But are they going to do that? Of course not, because they don't give a shit. Unfortunately, you can't nursemaid everybody.

[Kanastrous]

I for-sure don't want to nursemaid everybody. Heck, it's a constant effort to remember that the moral obligation exists, to nursemaid anybody.

[General Zod]

Food stamps are also traded for drugs. The fact is that you can't really prevent poor people from acting like, well, stereotypical poor people. Not all of them fit the stereotype, but plenty of them do. And let's face it, that's what we're really trying to do when we propose extra control of how they spend the money we give them.

We look at the behaviour of the typical poor person and we wring our hands in frustration, because so many of them seem to have no interest in improving their status, or even looking halfway respectable. I've lived near welfare housing before; the amount of money they spend on beer alone would be enough to pay for decent-looking clothes and training courses so they could maybe better themselves, look respectable, and attend a job interview without being turned away at the door. But are they going to do that? Of course not, because they don't give a shit. Unfortunately, you can't nursemaid everybody.

Unfortunately one of the big problems is the way that government welfare is set up. They practically make it so that you have to stay on their system. A lot of people on welfare could get a modest paying job that's enough to cover rent utilities and some basics, but the moment they start earning above a certain income level the government will cut you off. Unfortunately that income level tends to be unrealistically low and doesn't take into consideration cost of living expense or any kind of outstanding medical problems or existing debt.