Guaranteeing that families won't go bankrupt due to market forces beyond their control would make so many things so much easier. For example, in my state of Pen

Guaranteeing that families won't go bankrupt due to market forces beyond their control would make so many things so much easier. For example, in my state of Pennsylvania, fracking is a political issue. It's a fossil fuel industry, so ideally we'd be weaning off it. But we actually encourage it by having no severance tax on any extracted energy sources. The state is leaving money on the table, and voters seem to like it that way. But, in truth, they don't care about taxes for fracking companies. They care about not ruining towns economically dependant on fracking. They're terrified of those companies leaving, because a chunk of the town's workforce would fall into poverty and take the town with it. Very few people care about where their electricity and heat come from, as long as they can afford it. There's no good reason to oppose moving to renewables except household economics, which is a very good reason for individual voters. If we made sure they weren't going to freeze and starve if the one big employer left town, that employer wouldn't have such an outsized influence on state politics. In a healthy free market, companies go bust. It just happens: better competitors show up, services or goods aren't needed, plans don't pan out. But we've created a system that keeps companies afloat ala Weekend at Bernie's, instead of what people actually want: keep families afloat.