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Raise the EITC

The military used to make people prove how much they paid for rent/mortgage and paid up to a maximum amount in housing benefits but no more than they were paying in rent.

I mean, they weren't just going to give service members free money above what they were actually spending on housing.

So there was all this paperwork involved, you had to show your lease, they had to verify it, everyone was getting paid different amounts.

And of course, this system invited people to game it. Say the max BAH (basic allowance for housing) in your area is $1200/month but you find a place for $700/month. You tell the landlord to write you a lease for $1200, they get $800 instead of $700 and kick you back the difference. Or you just submit a fake lease.

So besides keeping track of all the paperwork they were having to investigate and punish people.

Then they decided to just pay everyone the max BAH and not worry about what they spent or didn't spend on rent. You know what? The overall cost went down, way down. The secondary cost of investigating and punishing and kicking out service members went away for the most part. It was simple. And If I found a place I wanted to live for less than the max BAH then good for me.

Just give people their EITC and don't worry about it. It'll work itself out.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
I’d redistribute in a heartbeat (I’m not top 1% fwiw) if I trusted the government to distribute the money in a way that made sense and wasn’t pissed away on their own “administrative fees” or by the people who received that money.

Listen, perhaps the biggest problem with the lowest 10,000,000 is education. And that’s overarching. That encompasses academics, life skills, parenting, health, financial management, and so on. Sorry, but that money would be epically wasted by the far majority of those lower 10,000,000 lest stringent guidelines be put in place.

If it’s me, and I’m dishing out 50 billion, I’m dishing it out to fewer families to start. One third as many. To receive it, one would have to show gainful employment for x months of x years prior, and a minimal (and majority) amount would have to be spent on housing, and certain adult education requirements would have to be met regularly. Not on a weekly basis but something. Something to teach “these people” certain fundamentals that any adult and parent worth a damn should know and pass on down to their child. In order to continue to earn said money year to year, certain things need to be proven. That they’ve attended these classes and passed certain assessments, that they’ve shown they have invested a portion of this money, that their children are demonstrating an understanding of the importance of their academics by minimal performance standards in school. Perhaps these people also need to take part in minimal community service (32 hours?) each year as well to “give back” for what they’ve received.

This needs to be an improved version of our welfare system which is an abomination. It needs to be about education and community and realizing that this gift is just that and it needs to be cherished by those who receive it and that gifts are not always given. There needs to be guidelines in place that are reasonable and yet are a step to improving these families and the whole that is this country. This world for that matter.

If it’s me, I don’t give it to the worst 3.33M families in the country. I give it to a tier or two above them. And to people who’ve demonstrated consistent employment. Get these people who are perhaps upper lower class out of their struggles. Basically, I envision giving them 15K a year untaxed. 12K could go toward a mortgage. That’s about a 200K mortgage. Of the other 3K, perhaps 2K could go toward investments for retirement or higher education that can be used on nothing else and 1K for personal spending. Not much, but considering these people could get a brand new ****ing home down south (that’s where I’m picturing much of this) with little to no mortgage would be amazing for them. This could totally cause a boom in construction nationwide as well and help with jobs (perhaps for many of these people or those below them). This could be life-changing ****.

I’d worry about a neighborhood of 40 new homes that is built for these people turning over time into a ghost town-like Hamsterdams. I mean, you can only “change” these people so quickly, so much. But there could be regular check-ups perhaps to ensure these people are creating a community envisioned. That they’re adhering to some sort of HOA standards or something.

Okay done for now; tldnr

But I envision this working (some will **** up the opportunity) and by showing it works, the lowest 10% would feel hope and see something to strive for, and this could be expanded years later.
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I like a lot of your thoughts here. There are definitely people that "deserve" the additional help more than others. Some people are going to receive this assistance and simply piss it away. Others will use the assistance to better their lives and the lives of their families. I don't know how the federal government would distinguish the two, but if they somehow could I would be all for it.

Also, does some of the assistance provided to individuals that are making poor life decisions just empower them to continue making those decisions? More of a rhetorical question.
 
AlaskanAssassin said:
I like a lot of your thoughts here. There are definitely people that "deserve" the additional help more than others. Some people are going to receive this assistance and simply piss it away. Others will use the assistance to better their lives and the lives of their families. I don't know how the federal government would distinguish the two, but if they somehow could I would be all for it.

Also, does some of the assistance provided to individuals that are making poor life decisions just empower them to continue making those decisions? More of a rhetorical question.
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The cost of distinguishing between the two would be higher than any benefit it would gain over just giving people the money and letting them figure it out. This whole concept of who deserves it and who doesn't is extremely subjective.

Everyone pisses their money away. That's what money is for. One guy buys a nice new car. One guy buys a bigger house or a smaller house with a "better" zip code. One person shops at Whole Foods instead of buying groceries at Wal-Mart. One guy gets the newest best phone. One person goes to school. One guy buys nicer clothes. One guy buys craft beer instead of Natural Light. One guy goes to the movies more often. All these things and more are examples of pissing the money away.

Who gives a ****? You want to micro-manage what people do with it and judge whether or not they are worthy?
 
Bulletproof said:
The cost of distinguishing between the two would be higher than any benefit it would gain over just giving people the money and letting them figure it out. This whole concept of who deserves it and who doesn't is extremely subjective.

Everyone pisses their money away. That's what money is for. One guy buys a nice new car. One guy buys a bigger house or a smaller house with a "better" zip code. One person shops at Whole Foods instead of buying groceries at Wal-Mart. One guy gets the newest best phone. One person goes to school. One guy buys nicer clothes. One guy buys craft beer instead of Natural Light. One guy goes to the movies more often. All these things and more are examples of pissing the money away.

Who gives a ****? You want to micro-manage what people do with it and judge whether or not they are worthy?
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You are probably right that monitoring this type of thing would not only be difficult, but very costly. The government does it for a variety of other welfare programs, however (Welfare, Food Stamps, Unemployment, etc.). I'm not in favor of all of this necessarily, but I think it's worth discussing how to help the people that need it.
It's all subjective. Tax rates, who gets assistance and who doesn't, qualifications, etc. If you want to take all the subjectivity out of the equation than it just needs to be Universal Basic Income.
And I disagree that "everyone pisses their money away". Everyone spends their money, but certainly some people use it far more effectively than others. If a guy is buying beer instead of paying for tutoring for his daughter, that's pissing money away.
 
AlaskanAssassin said:
I like a lot of your thoughts here. There are definitely people that "deserve" the additional help more than others. Some people are going to receive this assistance and simply piss it away. Others will use the assistance to better their lives and the lives of their families. I don't know how the federal government would distinguish the two, but if they somehow could I would be all for it.

Also, does some of the assistance provided to individuals that are making poor life decisions just empower them to continue making those decisions? More of a rhetorical question.
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Yes it does. And I say this based on 16 years of teaching and hearing a ton of stories from students or people who live in the town. They’re brutally honest.
 
We've done a couple of things like this here, during the GFC the government had a stimulus package where every tax payer could claim a 1000 bucks back for the financial year with the thinking that the money would be reinvested into the economy from what I can tell it worked fairly well to cushion the economy against the economic downturn.

We've also had a baby bonus program which paid out 7000 i think for the birth of every child. In and of itself not a bad idea but it was paid as a payment not a tax credit, so if you didn't pay tax you still got the bonus, you can imagine what happened. I actually thought it was a good idea but it should have been a tax credit, and i actually see no reason why in that scenario it couldn't have been increased to say a cap of 30k depending on a couples earnings. You know a couple or individual with earnings under 100k can claim say 15k back over 3 years, couple on 150 can claim 20, couple on 200+ capped at say 25k or something would make sense to me. At least these people have the means to actually raise their children and it would be of significant net benefit to the economy. As it was the program for the most part swelled the welfare budget.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
LMAO. You found one and it references Kenya. Yeah, apples to apples.
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What's the minimum number of links you require, and what locations are relevant?

After all, the world is full of arrogant idiots who think they are better than poor people, and that poor people don't have money because of personal defects. So, I don't know how many programs there are that offer unencumbered cash.

But you have some personal anecdotes, so you must be the expert.
 
One Brow said:
What's the minimum number of links you require, and what locations are relevant?

After all, the world is full of arrogant idiots who think they are better than poor people, and that poor people don't have money because of personal defects. So, I don't know how many programs there are that offer unencumbered cash.

But you have some personal anecdotes, so you must be the expert.
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I think showing that the U.S. EITC made a difference would be sufficient.
 
Then I'm all for increasing the EITC since it appears to be helping.
 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/thei...RBbyuihkLYshdT1AAj7tKg9EoiHRPunJNRrsKfa40_Fgp

Three families of dynastic wealth — that’s the Walton, Koch and Mars families — have seen their wealth increase close to 6,000% since 1982

Their combined wealth – a staggering $348.7 billion as of October 2018 – is more than the combined wealth of 4 million American families of median wealth

As the Waltons, Kochs, and Mars families have seen their wealth increase, the median household wealth for Americans has fallen by 3% since 1982

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, the three richest people in the world, are wealthier than the bottom half of the country — combined

More generally, the top 1% of the U.S. — a group of 1.6 million families, holds 42% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 90% only holds 23%. That’s roughly the same amount as the top 0.1%.

Average pre-tax incomes for the bottom 50%, when adjusted for inflation was $16,000 in 1980. More than 30 years later, it was $16,200. In comparison, incomes doubled for the top 10%. This snowballs the wealthier you are. Incomes tripled for the top 1%. And for the top 0.1%? Incomes quadrupled.



I see this as problematic and disturbing
 
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