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Don't we spend quite a bit of money on safety nets in the US? I believe and often say that our government is inefficient with money. Maybe our programs could us

by dgzl 8y ago

Don't we spend quite a bit of money on safety nets in the US? I believe and often say that our government is inefficient with money. Maybe our programs could use a redesign?

ohazi 8y ago
The priority of one party is to spend money on social safety nets, while the priority of the other party is to hobble these safety nets to the point of uselessness. It should be no surprise that we ended up with expensive and ineffective social programs.
- antidesitter 8y ago
  To be clear: Are you claiming the expensiveness and ineffectiveness of social programs is due to only one party?
  - berbec 8y ago
    I believe the point was one party makes the programs expensive and the other party makes them ineffective. I hadn't thought of it that way before!
- pmiller2 8y ago
  We're dangerously treading into political hot water here, but I just want to add that I don't think it's fair to say that one party prioritizes safety nets. It's more correct to say that most of the safety nets we have in the US have come from one party, and since the 1930s.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I would generally disagree with this, just because I believe that government is inherently inefficient. I've been a government contractor and have seen this first hand. I wouldn't disagree that many people in power, both inside and outside the government, work to undermine the programs.
- adventured 8y ago
  That's of course not always the case. We're in a thread about homelessness, so this is quite appropriate: NY Times 2008: "The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation’s streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent — to 123,833 from 175,914 — between 2005 and 2007, Bush administration officials said on Tuesday." "the officials attribute much of the decline to the “housing first” strategy that has been promoted by the Bush administration and Congress and increasingly adopted across the country." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/30homelessweb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/30homelessweb.html 2013: "The Astonishing Decline of Homelessness in America" https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast... Ultimately culminating in an all-time record low rate of homelessness in the US by 2017. The George W. Bush administration deserves the negative flak it took for its various bad policies. It also deserves credit for the positive things like its policies on homelessness or PEPFAR that were astounding successes.
jjoonathan 8y ago
Step 1: cut funding disguised as a redesign. Step 2: complain that it doesn't work and needs a redesign. Step 3: go to Step 1. It absolutely needs a redesign but it also needs funding -- and people who don't want to fund these programs have gotten very good at using the former to avoid doing the latter.
Retric 8y ago
Social Security hands money to literal billionaires while excluding many of the elderly poor. Now, we can argue if it’s good use of money, but these programs are intentionally set up this way.
- madengr 8y ago
  There aren’t many billionaires, and SS taxable income is capped; $128k this year. So a billionaire receiving SS is rightly entitled to receive what he contributed. You can strip SS from the 1% and it will make no difference. You can do the same for the 10% and it will make little difference. The 10% payed FAR more in than they will receive.
  - Retric 8y ago
    So, you agree SS is not a safty net? PS: Social Security is hardly fair. That cap is by far the largest benifit for billionaires from social security’s design. People in the 10% pay a vastly higher percentage of their income to support others. A fair system would be something like X% up to a cap that you get back and y% that you don’t with everyone paying their share of the y%. But that starts to look like a safty net. On top of that married couples get a larger benifit with a single large income vs two incomes of half that size.
    - madengr 8y ago
      Agree, SS is not a safety net. Neither is Medicare. What I should have made more clear is that stripping the 1% of SS benefits will provide no increase to the 99%. SS is supposed to be the third leg in the retirement stool, with pensions and individual investments the other two. SS is a very short leg, nearing insolvency. Pensions are a thing of the past. That leaves a pogo stick of individual savings. If you don’t want to be eating Alpo in old age, you need to be investing 20% of your income, and hope you can ride that pogo stick until death.
- toast0 8y ago
  Social security is a mostly old age and disability insurance program with eligibility requirements and weird rules, and maybe some solvency issues. My understanding is there is some coverage for disabled children that's not based on previous earnings, but I'm not familiar with the details. Everything else is based on eligible earnings, so I wouldn't consider it a safety net -- if you didn't earn enough or long enough, you may not get anything out of it. I think you're going to get a lot more resistance from high income/ high net worth individuals if you take away their social security payments than if you raise the pay in caps, and set the payout percentages to be even lower at the top end. Or scrap the whole thing and build an honest steal from the rich and give to the poor guaranteed minimum income tax scheme.
adventured 8y ago
Yes, the considerable, positive results from the dramatically expanded US social safety net are widely ignored. It's a mistake to ignore those results, they should be held up as a triumph. It worked, we have the positive results to show for it. The US child poverty rate has dropped by over 50% since the 1970s. It's at an all-time record low solely due to the expansion of the US social safety net. US homelessness is near a record low (it hit a record low two years ago), solely due to the expansion of the US social safety net. The overall US poverty rate is near a 40 year low. The number of people with healthcare coverage is at record highs, primarily thanks to the expansion of Medicaid, CHIP and SS disability.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
We do, but at the same time, we spend considerably less than our developed peers. Right now we mostly get what we pay for: we pay a reduced rate and get reduced results, which in this case largely translates to more poor people suffering. We could change that, certainly we have the funds necessary, but we've collectively decided not to.

by dgzl 8y ago

Don't we spend quite a bit of money on safety nets in the US? I believe and often say that our government is inefficient with money. Maybe our programs could use a redesign?

ohazi 8y ago

The priority of one party is to spend money on social safety nets, while the priority of the other party is to hobble these safety nets to the point of uselessness. It should be no surprise that we ended up with expensive and ineffective social programs.

antidesitter 8y ago
To be clear: Are you claiming the expensiveness and ineffectiveness of social programs is due to only one party?
- berbec 8y ago
  I believe the point was one party makes the programs expensive and the other party makes them ineffective. I hadn't thought of it that way before!
pmiller2 8y ago
We're dangerously treading into political hot water here, but I just want to add that I don't think it's fair to say that one party prioritizes safety nets. It's more correct to say that most of the safety nets we have in the US have come from one party, and since the 1930s.
- dgzl 8y ago
  I would generally disagree with this, just because I believe that government is inherently inefficient. I've been a government contractor and have seen this first hand. I wouldn't disagree that many people in power, both inside and outside the government, work to undermine the programs.
adventured 8y ago
That's of course not always the case. We're in a thread about homelessness, so this is quite appropriate: NY Times 2008: "The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation’s streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent — to 123,833 from 175,914 — between 2005 and 2007, Bush administration officials said on Tuesday." "the officials attribute much of the decline to the “housing first” strategy that has been promoted by the Bush administration and Congress and increasingly adopted across the country." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/30homelessweb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/30homelessweb.html 2013: "The Astonishing Decline of Homelessness in America" https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast... Ultimately culminating in an all-time record low rate of homelessness in the US by 2017. The George W. Bush administration deserves the negative flak it took for its various bad policies. It also deserves credit for the positive things like its policies on homelessness or PEPFAR that were astounding successes.

jjoonathan 8y ago

Step 1: cut funding disguised as a redesign. Step 2: complain that it doesn't work and needs a redesign. Step 3: go to Step 1. It absolutely needs a redesign but it also needs funding -- and people who don't want to fund these programs have gotten very good at using the former to avoid doing the latter.

Retric 8y ago

Social Security hands money to literal billionaires while excluding many of the elderly poor. Now, we can argue if it’s good use of money, but these programs are intentionally set up this way.

madengr 8y ago
There aren’t many billionaires, and SS taxable income is capped; $128k this year. So a billionaire receiving SS is rightly entitled to receive what he contributed. You can strip SS from the 1% and it will make no difference. You can do the same for the 10% and it will make little difference. The 10% payed FAR more in than they will receive.
- Retric 8y ago
  So, you agree SS is not a safty net? PS: Social Security is hardly fair. That cap is by far the largest benifit for billionaires from social security’s design. People in the 10% pay a vastly higher percentage of their income to support others. A fair system would be something like X% up to a cap that you get back and y% that you don’t with everyone paying their share of the y%. But that starts to look like a safty net. On top of that married couples get a larger benifit with a single large income vs two incomes of half that size.
  - madengr 8y ago
    Agree, SS is not a safety net. Neither is Medicare. What I should have made more clear is that stripping the 1% of SS benefits will provide no increase to the 99%. SS is supposed to be the third leg in the retirement stool, with pensions and individual investments the other two. SS is a very short leg, nearing insolvency. Pensions are a thing of the past. That leaves a pogo stick of individual savings. If you don’t want to be eating Alpo in old age, you need to be investing 20% of your income, and hope you can ride that pogo stick until death.
toast0 8y ago
Social security is a mostly old age and disability insurance program with eligibility requirements and weird rules, and maybe some solvency issues. My understanding is there is some coverage for disabled children that's not based on previous earnings, but I'm not familiar with the details. Everything else is based on eligible earnings, so I wouldn't consider it a safety net -- if you didn't earn enough or long enough, you may not get anything out of it. I think you're going to get a lot more resistance from high income/ high net worth individuals if you take away their social security payments than if you raise the pay in caps, and set the payout percentages to be even lower at the top end. Or scrap the whole thing and build an honest steal from the rich and give to the poor guaranteed minimum income tax scheme.

adventured 8y ago

Yes, the considerable, positive results from the dramatically expanded US social safety net are widely ignored. It's a mistake to ignore those results, they should be held up as a triumph. It worked, we have the positive results to show for it. The US child poverty rate has dropped by over 50% since the 1970s. It's at an all-time record low solely due to the expansion of the US social safety net. US homelessness is near a record low (it hit a record low two years ago), solely due to the expansion of the US social safety net. The overall US poverty rate is near a 40 year low. The number of people with healthcare coverage is at record highs, primarily thanks to the expansion of Medicaid, CHIP and SS disability.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

We do, but at the same time, we spend considerably less than our developed peers. Right now we mostly get what we pay for: we pay a reduced rate and get reduced results, which in this case largely translates to more poor people suffering. We could change that, certainly we have the funds necessary, but we've collectively decided not to.