Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
so lets say someone earns $15/hr now, works 40 hours, earns $600/week... under your plan, they will work lets say 20 hours? how much will they earn?
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That is the issue that has to be solved, and it won't be a simple one line answer. People who work 9-5 and have no interest in 'climbing up' aren't trying to get a new lambo... but they do need to be able to eat, have access to transportation, see doctors, etc... Earning less dollars isn't that much of a problem, if basic healthcare is provided by the government rather than as out of pocket expenses. We *could* provide canned vegetables for free to people at a very low cost as another example and the impact of people actually eating them would reduce the cost of healthcare overall.
What we are headed for is a system that subsidizes the bottom of the society by providing basic healthcare, housing, food, etc... for free or so cheaply it may as well be free, and requires them to save their income if they want to buy iphones, flat screen televisions, new cars and the like. Going to see a doctor of your choice and getting a private hospital room or things of that sort will cost cash (or be possible with private supplemental insurance paid for by consumers), but going to a free clinic for basic wellness and emergency care will be free for the masses of people who choose not to pay for private care and needs to be a truly functional system which it presently is not.
A system like what I have seen proposed allows society to choose what basic things should be provided to everyone, no matter how lazy incompetent or dim witted you happen to be. Nobody is 'living large' on a free can of string beans. Nobody is ballin' because they got to have their pregnant wife seen by doctors during prenatal visits. You won't see subsidized housing units on MTV Cribs any time soon. If people want more than that they can scratch and work for it. Those that work 4 days a week will have plenty of time off to enjoy public parks, days at the beach, long afternoons with friends in clean safe neighborhoods etc... those who work 8 days a week can live in nicer houses and drive lambos. That is the way it should (and will) be eventually.
What we can't have is 1/2 the population out of work, hopeless, poorly fed, without preventative health care, uneducated and with zero chance of improving their lot due to lack of aptitude and opportunity while .01% of our population bleeds billions out of the economy while creating no jobs and voids their citizenship to take the money overseas by cashing out at the end like our country is a 2bit casino in the back of a whorehouse.
Rather than giving 16B in subsidies to Exxon, we might want to think about providing free canned vegetables to every American who wants them. Instead of burning crops to stabilize price, we might make them available at food pantries across the country. Instead of denigrating poor people for being dim... we ought to understand they are often poor BECAUSE they are dim, and we can help them enough for them to reach their potential because that is what society is all about. Helping each American reach their potential pushes our nation forward, whether they are capable of buying a fleet of private jets or working 20 tedious hours a week in a call center or staying home to raise their children. Instead of helping people reach their potential, we stamp them as 'the problem' and act like we are better than them... even as more and more of our population becomes part of that ever-growing category.