High redistributive taxes could reverse this most brutal of disparities.
Inequality makes a mockery of the cherished aspiration of equal opportunity. To take one particularly egregious example, the poorest residents of Chicago today face a life expectancy 30 years shorter than their richer neighbours down the street.
The Conversation Taxing the wealthy to the hilt would make us all much better off
Is it really inequality or is it poverty and the associated violence? No, it’s not the same thing! What this is really saying is everything would be ok if we just took more taxes from some people and gave the money to others.
Thinking about that, wouldn’t we need more inequality before we could do that? And then there is how such money would be used, what would change? Just providing food, housing even child care assistance alone merely sustains the status quo.
Stop the inequality nonsense and focus on the root causes of chronic poverty – education, jobs, absent fathers, dysfunctional families, lack of hope, gangs, single mother pregnancy.
There is plenty of money in the system to address these issues which admittedly are difficult to deal with, but taxing others “to the hilt” is not the answer.
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“ To take one particularly egregious example, the poorest residents of Chicago today face a life expectancy 30 years shorter than their richer neighbours down the street.”
If the residents could pause from offing each other for a couple holiday weekends perhaps the life expectancy would rise. You can take the boy out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the boy.
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There have been many research studies by academics and Congressional appointed commissions on changing the poverty rate trajectory. And a really large amount of tax monies have been allocated over the decades to reduce poverty rates. But poverty persists.
Well, the influx of millions of impoverished people that are coming into the country will add to the poor numbers. The lack of affordable housing is also a big factor. The drug abuse scourge is another factor.
I think a key remedy is to offer job training to the work able adults in employment fields that are begging for additional workers. Teach people employable trade skills so that they can provide for their families.
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I follow 2nd Amendments as well as other Constitutional issues. Every time there is a gang war mass shooting the anti-gunners want more gun control. The problem is that the gangs do not follow the law to begin with. Pro-gun groups argue that government needs to address mental health issues, drugs, and gangs because it is not the tool shooting people, it is the people holding the tool.
This week a politician from St. Louis, MO (I believe it was the mayor) stated that St. Louis has to do something different to solve their gun violence’s problem. St. Louis has about the same size population as Newark, NJ, (about 300,000 people) and both are longtime democratically controlled cities. But Newark has only had 50 murders so far this year compared to 177 so far in St. Louis (I did verify these numbers this morning). Now I have a theory on why that is and it has to do with elected DAs verse appointed DAs but that is for another discussion. I am sure that there are social support programs that are different between the two cities and they should be examined. I am also betting if they improve the city’s living conditions, their murder rate will also come down.
My point here is, that in St Louis, they are finally waking up that they can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. We, as a country, have been throwing money at “poverty” since the Great Depression. The current measure of success is that there is “equality” among the population. That is the wrong measurement. The measurement should be that people are not dying in the streets.
There should be equal opportunity for those who want to work hard but that does not guarantee equal outcomes. Lazy people expecting a handout should not complain.
I do exclude all the people who are truly needy from either life changing medical event or losing a job through no fault of their own. The government should help them. But there are millions of people who are generationally poor or have just checked out because the government will given them what they need because “they deserve it” or so they are told by vote buying politicians. It is this group that I address my concerns.
The homeless that are dying in the street often have drug and mental issues but we closed down most of the mental institutions that could have helped them. Instead we give them tents because it is cheaper then maintaining institutions and mental hospitals. Lack of police protection results in gangs forming to protect their members and they fund themselves with drug money or by stealing. Government needs to encourage new businesses instead of over regulating them that results in preventing them from creating jobs and opportunities.
Not everybody will start off as a CEO, but how many legal immigrates start small businesses. Who runs the donut shops, gas stations, and 7-11 now? People who started selling things out of their cars. Do they make equal to a fortune 500 company CEO? No, but they have a better title and that is the title of being “owner”.
It seems like to me that the current trend is that the government, the media, and Hollywood is doing everything they can to break up families even more, take away parental rights, and promote child trafficking while flooding our borders with illegals who proved that they will break the laws to get into our country. I do not see how throwing any amount of money at “poverty” will overcome the breakdown in society that our government and media is currently doing.
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There is a wrong headed idea prevalent in this country as elsewhere that providing the government with more tax money will make things right. Anytime you confront one of the tax the rich dreamers with the evidence that government social programs don’t work very well, they come back with the stock answer that it’s underfunded. As if throwing good money after bad is the answer.
When I mention that the police, courts, and prisons are underfunded, those same people recoil in horror.
Putting more money on the streets will lead to more drugs, more guns and killing, and more dysfunctional behaviors of all types. We don’t have the answers right now and squandering more money immediately isn’t the answer. I think higher taxes are in the cards and should be, but don’t throw the money at social programs because some unknowing, socialist academic says it’s the right thing to do. Good behavior costs nothing really, don’t shoot your neighbor, don’t cuss at fast food counter workers, don’t steal anything today and wear a smile instead of a scowl. All that is free to do and I don’t need an academic or government supported social program to teach me to do it.
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