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Giving free money to high-income and wealthy people makes absolutely no sense.

• lmm 3y ago
  Oh but it does. It simplifies administration, and even more importantly, it's a great social unifier. People hate it when other people get something they don't; if you look at a lot of public services (healthcare, education, transport, arts), even when systems are similar on paper, whether the high-income and wealthy "buy in" to the publicly provided service or not makes a huge difference in whether it succeeds.
• gumby 3y ago
  Seconding lmm’s comment: the main reason social security remains popular is that everyone receives it. Yes, it’s crazy that billionaires get it but there aren’t a lot of them. If you look at some of the “fraud prevention” criteria some states implement you find they often (true: not always) end up costing more than the fraud they are supposedly preventing. Meanwhile they provide hoops legitimately qualifying people find hard to jump through, which defeats the point of having the program in the first place. Sometimes I think that’s the actual goal of these programs.
  • listenallyall 3y ago
    Social Security is popular, with little controversy, because it is rather equitable: you pay into it while you're working, then you receive benefits when you're retired (or just old). In fact, wealthy people often get more out, because they paid more into it.
• PlunderBunny 3y ago
  If it makes you feel better, adjust taxes so that those high income and wealthy people pay for the money they receive for free, but poor people don’t. Assuming your taxation system is low admin (e.g. a value added tax plus pay-as-you-earn income tax), this shouldn’t be burdensome from an administrative point of view. (This is easy when I wave my hand and say ‘just do these things’)