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I must say that as someone who does NOT live in a crazy high-rent state or town, I am not well pleased by the idea of my federal tax dollars going to people who

by xaa 9y ago

I must say that as someone who does NOT live in a crazy high-rent state or town, I am not well pleased by the idea of my federal tax dollars going to people who choose to live there but can't make ends meet, and this even though I'm generally pro-spending on social welfare. You may say, "but the poor can't afford to move!". Well, if that's the case, the government should subsidize their move instead. It would be way cheaper and would incidentally drive real estate prices closer to the national median. I'm not trying to cast any blame on people in this situation, as they are likely there through no fault of their own, but this can hardly be the most efficient way to solve the problem. I feel like economics is screaming a message to people in the Bay Area: "There are too many people here! There's tons of land in the U.S.!", but no one is listening, just casting blame on the techies, gentrification, land policy, or whatever.

DiNovi 9y ago
You're discussing the government force relocating poor people. Think about that...
- xaa 9y ago
  No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that they be given the choice of moving somewhere else, of their choice, with subsidies for the move, or trying to go it alone in place. And this only for those people who fall in that gap between (approximately) the national low-income line and the local "low-income" line. People who fall below the national low-income line should be given subsidies, regardless of where they live. I believe in helping people, but not subsidizing irrational behavior that exacerbates an existing problem. Just think about how this looks to someone like me: the low-income threshold in CA is over twice my household income. And I am not classified as low-income. So to some degree my tax dollars will be transferred to subsidize some terrible decision-making. If this looks bad to me, a liberal, think how it looks to moderates and conservatives! Let's take this to the logical extreme: suppose I decide to live literally in Hollywood hills, where one of my relatives lives. I make nowhere near enough to survive there. Should I be subsidized anyway? Does it make a difference if I was born in Hollywood and this situation arose subsequently? I think not, when it comes to the question of what should be done about it now, although reasonable minds may differ.
closeparen 9y ago
My federal income taxes (which treat me as though I am rich, because income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted) buy: - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for your car. - The interstate highways you drive on. - The stability of the mortgage-lending ecosystem (via bailouts), and FHA subsidies that privilege suburban single family homes over urban condos. - Welfare so that unemployed people can stay in dead-end towns, instead of moving to where they are needed. If these costs were instead embedded in the home prices and rents of the low-density regions they enable, those places wouldn't be cheap anymore. I don't think we need to force everyone in to urban skyscrapers, but I do think the federal government ought to prop up urbanization at the expense of people in cheap areas at least as much as it props up sprawl at the expense of high COL city dwellers.
- xaa 9y ago
  > income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted Well, this is another issue. It's incoherent, honestly, that someone can be considered both rich and poor from the federal perspective. But in the end, a COL adjustment on income tax would be equivalent to the type of subsidy in question. - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for your car. lel. If that was ever true, which I doubt, it isn't any more. If there was ever a point that our military paid for itself (even on the margin) in terms of cheaper oil, I'll eat my hat. > Welfare so that unemployed people can stay in dead-end towns, instead of moving to where they are needed. This is really the core of it. If people are really needed, economically and relatively to elsewhere, in supercities, then supercities will pay enough for them to live there. Ergo, you are overstating how much they are needed. This is exactly analogous to employers claiming there is a "shortage" of programmers, but they aren't willing to raise wages. Besides, am I to believe that there are no unemployed people on welfare in cities? I don't know what the relative rate is. I do agree people should be incentivized to move where they are needed. We may have different views on where that is, exactly. Any kind of welfare distorts economic "need" signals, which is a big downside of it. Imagining welfare or wealth transfers didn't exist, I'd say that the place where people are most "needed" is a place where benefits of living - COL is highest. I have no data on where that might be, but I doubt SV ranks high on the list unless you are a programmer. By that metric I would imagine that there would be a dynamic equilibrium between urbanization and countryside, as there is now. In some ways, SV programmers defending subsidies for service workers in SV sounds like "please subsidize my $10 latte and Whole Foods bill". > the low-density regions they enable This is pretty creative. If cities had to grow their own food and extract their own natural resources, I think they'd have quite a problem, yes? It may be fair to say cities & countryside are codependent, but the idea that cities are one-sidedly enabling everyone else is not credible. It is quite likely that there is a net transfer of wealth from cities to the countryside. The reason I would argue this is "fair" is because people in the cities are also the primary beneficiaries of GDP growth. BTW, I don't live in the country, I live in a medium-sized city. I am limiting my criticisms to cities that have so poorly planned expansion, or are so crowded, that the COL is sky-high, and they want a bailout from everyone else.

by xaa 9y ago

DiNovi 9y ago

You're discussing the government force relocating poor people. Think about that...

xaa 9y ago
No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that they be given the choice of moving somewhere else, of their choice, with subsidies for the move, or trying to go it alone in place. And this only for those people who fall in that gap between (approximately) the national low-income line and the local "low-income" line. People who fall below the national low-income line should be given subsidies, regardless of where they live. I believe in helping people, but not subsidizing irrational behavior that exacerbates an existing problem. Just think about how this looks to someone like me: the low-income threshold in CA is over twice my household income. And I am not classified as low-income. So to some degree my tax dollars will be transferred to subsidize some terrible decision-making. If this looks bad to me, a liberal, think how it looks to moderates and conservatives! Let's take this to the logical extreme: suppose I decide to live literally in Hollywood hills, where one of my relatives lives. I make nowhere near enough to survive there. Should I be subsidized anyway? Does it make a difference if I was born in Hollywood and this situation arose subsequently? I think not, when it comes to the question of what should be done about it now, although reasonable minds may differ.

closeparen 9y ago

My federal income taxes (which treat me as though I am rich, because income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted) buy: - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for your car. - The interstate highways you drive on. - The stability of the mortgage-lending ecosystem (via bailouts), and FHA subsidies that privilege suburban single family homes over urban condos. - Welfare so that unemployed people can stay in dead-end towns, instead of moving to where they are needed. If these costs were instead embedded in the home prices and rents of the low-density regions they enable, those places wouldn't be cheap anymore. I don't think we need to force everyone in to urban skyscrapers, but I do think the federal government ought to prop up urbanization at the expense of people in cheap areas at least as much as it props up sprawl at the expense of high COL city dwellers.

xaa 9y ago
> income taxes are not cost-of-living adjusted Well, this is another issue. It's incoherent, honestly, that someone can be considered both rich and poor from the federal perspective. But in the end, a COL adjustment on income tax would be equivalent to the type of subsidy in question. - The diplomatic, covert, and military apparatus which dominates the world to the extent necessary to secure the flow of cheap oil for your car. lel. If that was ever true, which I doubt, it isn't any more. If there was ever a point that our military paid for itself (even on the margin) in terms of cheaper oil, I'll eat my hat. > Welfare so that unemployed people can stay in dead-end towns, instead of moving to where they are needed. This is really the core of it. If people are really needed, economically and relatively to elsewhere, in supercities, then supercities will pay enough for them to live there. Ergo, you are overstating how much they are needed. This is exactly analogous to employers claiming there is a "shortage" of programmers, but they aren't willing to raise wages. Besides, am I to believe that there are no unemployed people on welfare in cities? I don't know what the relative rate is. I do agree people should be incentivized to move where they are needed. We may have different views on where that is, exactly. Any kind of welfare distorts economic "need" signals, which is a big downside of it. Imagining welfare or wealth transfers didn't exist, I'd say that the place where people are most "needed" is a place where benefits of living - COL is highest. I have no data on where that might be, but I doubt SV ranks high on the list unless you are a programmer. By that metric I would imagine that there would be a dynamic equilibrium between urbanization and countryside, as there is now. In some ways, SV programmers defending subsidies for service workers in SV sounds like "please subsidize my $10 latte and Whole Foods bill". > the low-density regions they enable This is pretty creative. If cities had to grow their own food and extract their own natural resources, I think they'd have quite a problem, yes? It may be fair to say cities & countryside are codependent, but the idea that cities are one-sidedly enabling everyone else is not credible. It is quite likely that there is a net transfer of wealth from cities to the countryside. The reason I would argue this is "fair" is because people in the cities are also the primary beneficiaries of GDP growth. BTW, I don't live in the country, I live in a medium-sized city. I am limiting my criticisms to cities that have so poorly planned expansion, or are so crowded, that the COL is sky-high, and they want a bailout from everyone else.