4 ms·

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 uselessn

by 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.

by ohazi 8y ago

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.