[RD] How I would reform the US welfare system

[Azem.Ocram]

Parts of the US welfare system is a mess which might actually be a net negative vs doing nothing. I suggest a radical difference which is economically feasible but politically infeasible because of lobbying.

1. Everyone with a social security number should qualify for something similar to WIC, which gives needy families specific, nutritionally-appropriate foods. WIC doesn't include junk "food" but EBT/SNAP/Food Stamps allows the purchase of junk "food." Everyone on the program should have an option to either have a card to pay for nutritious food at local grocers/markets or have a box delivered to their address once a week.
2. Every public school should provide breakfast and lunch to every student which respects nutritional needs and dietary restrictions (or at least medical and religious dietary restrictions). Currently, lactose-intolerant students are still given milk, and usually have to pay for it. Public school openings should have the 2 meals deduct from #1, which punishes truancy and removes part of the incentive of private schools.
3. Everyone with a social security number should receive emergency and preventative medicine free of charge.
4. For-profit health insurance should be banned.
5. Subsidized mortgages should be replaced with subsidized rent.
6. Every adult with a social security number should receive an amount of money each month equal to 1/12 the federal poverty line (which is likely a year out of date), minus rent assistance, minimum $0.
7. To pay for this, there should be a tax levied on every pollutant emitted, besides CO2 from human breath. Capital gains tax should increase. A wealth tax should be levied on household wealth over 500 million dollars, with the wealth tax increasing for every $500m (so $2b+$1 has 4x the marginal wealth tax of $500m+$1). Also, property taxes should be charged based on market value of the property, with the rate lowered for occupied property, and lowest for purpose built rentals. Finally, the government should stop paying for-profit prisons.

 

[Hygro]

Azem.Ocram still thinks you need to match taxes to spending.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think hes got the taxes covered, just with very unpopular taxes (at least among the GOP)

 

[Hygro]

AmazonQueen also thinks you need taxes to fund spending.

 

[AmazonQueen]

AmazonQueen also thinks you need taxes to fund spending.

Gotcha, Understood.

 

[Hygro]

To be clear I am more or less game for that tax plan obviously unrelated to “paying for” anything directly.

but on to the good stuff, the welfare reform. I more or less agree with AO’s ideas. Charging milk intolerant kids for milk is a crime. Centralizing welfare is a great idea. Direct transfer payments based on poverty line equations is a good thing. A socialized medicine baseline is a good thing (that baseline can be high. I have welfare insurance right now and it ruuuuuuuuuuuules).

I think encouraging home ownership is a good thing but obviously the current system of that is classist. I’m not sure how we should “solve housing” but it’s worth looking into.

 

[Zardnaar]

Some things here.

1. We have universal healthcare and private insurance. It's alot cheaper than us insurance.

2. Welfare here does adjust for rent. It's also pumped up the price of rent.

Building more social housing years ago woukd have been cheaper long term. And the government has assets.

5 million population emergency housing 1 million a day, 12 million a day on subsides via the welfare payments.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think encouraging home ownership is a good thing but obviously the current system of that is classist. I’m not sure how we should “solve housing” but it’s worth looking into.

It's brutal. We want to increase renting opportunities, but we don't want to overly reward the rentier class.

When I drive through my city, there are a lot of home that are cute and little. What I sorely wish was an incentive scheme that allowed them to be knocked down and infilled to provide 3x the occupancy using height. Ideally, I think creating a system where the upstairs is lived in and the downstairs is rented (or vis versa if you want to) is the way to go. What I don't want is a system where the owning class just collects rents from the renting class, but is actually providing the social services that renting allows (transient occupancy, mobility, etc.). I don't know how to design the taxation system around this, but a reasonably large tax break for adding a rental unit to your primary residence, but then some type of scalar that prevents the rent from actually paying the whole mortgage. Ideally, we want home owners to have their income supplemented by renters and not the bank being rewarded for creating ever-larger mortgages.

 

[Farm Boy]

Then they have to get the break specifically for living in what they own, not what they rent. Arrangement must then be designed to fit other goals around that concept.

You don't want the incentive on renting.

 

[Samson]

After WW2 in the UK the state built loads of houses and provided everyone with a decent house. It seems a no brainer to me, but Maggie put a stop to it for reasons.

 

[stinkubus]

These are decent proposals. I do have some critiques.

1. This needs to be accompanied by a nationalized chain of grocery stores. Otherwise it becomes a subsidy to a special interest who then has incentives to undo your plan because it's way more profitable to sell people junk than healthy food.

2. Any benefit a school gives away needs to be universal; no questions asked. You turn children into outcasts doing things like this. It's cruel and saves very little for the trouble.

3 and 4 are fine.

5. Would probably require also offering some assistance to mortgage holders who are in trouble. I don't know if you could build a coalition around it otherwise. Why subsidize landlords when we can just dispossess them? I cannot think of a more predatory economic arrangement or one with worse incentives. If the Jefferson administration can pull off the Louisiana Purchase and FDR got through the War Production Act then the feds obviously have a long standing right to do this.

6. The federal poverty line is decades out of date. This subsidy should be far more generous.

7.

Azem.Ocram still thinks you need to match taxes to spending.

Instead of being snarky about MMT you could understand these taxes are precisely the sort of social engineering require to have any shot to reduce emissions while still allowing private interests to control most of the capital stock. Our ability to endlessly run deficits is intimately linked to our government's imperial activities.

If you really believed MMT why wouldn't you call for an abolishment of tax on all earned income?

 

[Azem.Ocram]

1. Is infeasible even economically

2. Public Schools would provide free meals to undocumented students who wouldn't get any public assistance otherwise. Private Schools cost the family money so it's assumed they can afford the extra cost. Truancy should at the very least be discouraged.

5. Well, my proposal is politically infeasible and mortgages are already subsidized. Keeping them subsidized is fine, I guess but then property tax incentives would need to change.

6. Most welfare payments I know of in areas where the local poverty line is higher than the federal one still pay less than the federal poverty line. This is still an increase. However, if the payment were to increase, the rental/mortgage assistance should be capped at the payment line (or the payment should lose its $0 floor and allow people to pay for rental assistance)

 

[Farm Boy]

https://edsource.org/2021/usda-extends-free-meals-through-next-school-year/653335

#2, at least currently.

 

[Sofista]

After WW2 in the UK the state built loads of houses and provided everyone with a decent house. It seems a no brainer to me, but Maggie put a stop to it for reasons.

I totally agree with the idea.

But then, ever now and then I can't find a parking spot in my apartment lot for the night, and have at times parked by public housing. And in the morning found a home-printed flier saying that the spot belongs to said public housing, and my car could have been legally removed.
I'm not sure how much I can express my feelings of how great it feels that my taxes provide for anyone who took the time and effort while paying around 20€ a month for rent. I thought about reversing the paper, writing an all-caps 'you're very welcome' with a marker and sticking it somewhere around the place, but ultimately decided not to.

 

[Lexicus]

Instead of being snarky about MMT you could understand these taxes are precisely the sort of social engineering require to have any shot to reduce emissions while still allowing private interests to control most of the capital stock. Our ability to endlessly run deficits is intimately linked to our government's imperial activities.

If you really believed MMT why wouldn't you call for an abolishment of tax on all earned income?

There are reasons other than "pay for stuff" to have an income tax, but I generally do come down on the side of either abolishing income tax outright or drastically changing it so that it only applies to individual incomes over $100,000/year. I would favor similar changes to the payroll tax.

 

[Hygro]

Instead of being snarky about MMT you could understand these taxes are precisely the sort of social engineering require to have any shot to reduce emissions while still allowing private interests to control most of the capital stock. Our ability to endlessly run deficits is intimately linked to our government's imperial activities.

If you really believed MMT why wouldn't you call for an abolishment of tax on all earned income?

To be clear I am more or less game for that tax plan obviously unrelated to “paying for” anything directly.

I was clear, Stinkubus. Clear!

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm still a supporter of Yang's Universal Basic Income.

 

[warpus]

The problem is that none of these ideas have any chance of getting off the ground in the next 30 years. American politicians are funded by those who oppose these ideas, and in American democracy the voice of those with $$ is a lot stronger than the voice of those who vote. By design too - the system is rigged against such changes to begin with.

 

[El_Machinae]

Azem.Ocram still thinks you need to match taxes to spending.

Was it you? I think it was you.

Someone point out that with digital currency, we could just set a universal tax rate and then run a lottery to see which digital dollars were destroyed. Like, "On April 4, all digibux transferred this year that has their fourth digit as a 1, 5, or 6 is destroyed". That would just represent a broad 30% tax. And then accounts would be reimbursed with created dollars based on the tax return.

And there's no reason to make it denominated in dollars. We could denominate in pennies and then just destroy 30% of pennies.

Now, this would make dollars into hot-potatoes but also destroy the demand for dollars during tax season. Maintaining the value of the currency by debt would have to continue.

 

[warpus]

Wasn't my idea, but there's probably better ways of taxing assets on the blockchain. If you burn a whole bunch of tokens during tax season, that would probably lead to speculation and buying pressure, depending on how many tokens were burned. It also seems somewhat random. In theory it might be possible to simply tax every single transaction on the official government blockchain, if we ever have such a thing. But then you could just move some of your assets to another blockchain and escape the tax scheme.