5 ms·

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not reall

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

NDlurker 3mo ago
Better to spend money on helping our neighbors than going around the world murdering people
- pixl97 3mo ago
  [flagged]
- alex43578 3mo ago
  Does free housing help people? The state of “the projects” in every metro would say otherwise. Does free food help people? Most Americans are already overweight, and far, far more die every year from diseases of excess consumption than hunger/malnutrition. Furthermore, when you give them food stamps, they try to sell and defraud the program to buy drugs or alcohol. We already “help” these people to the tune of many billions of dollars a year - let’s ask they make some cultural changes before we dive even deeper into debt as a nation.
  - hilariously 3mo ago
    >Does free housing help people? Studies say yes. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8513528/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8513528/ Your vibes and general lack of empathy don't make you correct.
    - 9x39 3mo ago
      That disabled non-producers go to the ER less if given an apartment is true doesn't make it empathetic or correct to build enormous unproductive spending networks under the label of homelessness, either. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homelessness-spending-audit-24b-five-years-didnt-consistently-track-outcomes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homeles... $50,000 a year per homeless with minimal, if any, result - if it's empathy, it's suicidal empathy to emit those kinds of funds without results year after year into systems that have sprung up to capture them and ask for more.
  - cindyllm 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - NDlurker 3mo ago
    Have you ever met anyone who's disabled and living off of SSI? We should be doing more to help them.
urbnspacecowboy 3mo ago
"Somebody else needs to pay for" warmongering, too, yet there's nowhere near as much hand-wringing about how "somebody else needs to pay for them".
acdha 3mo ago
You’re confusing free to the user with free to the government. Those are all great examples of things which make huge differences in the lives of the people who need them while having no meaningful impact on taxpayers (forget Jeff Bezos, none of us would significantly change our lives if we paid for childcare or housing out of general fund revenue, and that’s before you factor in how much money we’d save getting better treatment with universal healthcare — every time I’ve done the math comparing us with Denmark, it’s been roughly even once you factor in how much we pay for insurance). Part of how you can tell it’s not the cost motivating opposition is that this concern is never applied to defense spending.
jmyeet 3mo ago
This is such a straw man argument. Consider health care. The US spends by far the most per-capita on health care of any OECD country [1]. It's roughly 50% more than the number 2 on the list, which is Switzerland, a notoriously expensive country. Yet (almost?) every other country on that list has universal healthcare. Yet life expectancy is lower than Costa Rica [2] and generally health outcomes are worse in the US than most OECD nations. So providing universal healthcare would actually be cheaper overall but it would destroy a health insurance companies, which are nothing more than parasitic rent-seekers. There would be less spending per capita but a lot of that spending would be made by the government rather than companies. So you'd need to tax to cover that cost, which would be significant, but it would be overall cheaper. Now consider housing. We treat it as a speculative investment rather than something to provide shelter. There is absolutely no reason for it to be as expensive as it is. All we're doing is a massive wealth transfer from the young and poor to the old and rich. Yet we, as a society, choose to prioritize landlord and speculator profits over people, quite literally, dying in the street. Food? We produce an abundance of food, more than we can eat. There is absolutely no reason anyone should go hungry in any OECD nation, ever. We destroy food to protect profits. As for income, people generally want to be paid enough to live on, something that's becomign increasingly difficult. And again, we choose minting billionaires at a stupendous rate (and now trillionaires) over paying people a living wage. [1]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-glance-2025_a894f72e/full-report/health-expenditure-per-capita_affe6b0a.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-gla... [2]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-glance-2025_a894f72e/full-report/life-expectancy-at-birth_8a8dee48.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-gla...
- cassonmars 3mo ago
  The problem with attempting to provide universal healthcare in the united states is that, despite health professionals attesting to the necessity and validity of certain health related topics, the current administration in particular is very keen about stripping away access to these forms of care, as far as they legally can (medicare/medicaid, VA, federal funding). UHC requires the removal of politicians from qualified input, and this country's politicians love nothing more than to get overly involved in things they know nothing about.
King-Aaron 3mo ago
> The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. This line of thinking is exactly why America is sliding backwards. It is not a problem to pay for things provide a net benefit to society.
anubistheta 3mo ago
Exactly. Giving people free stuff is extremely popular. If people actually want those things, we can collective open our wallets and pay for it. But that changes people's opinions quite radically.
- vor_ 3mo ago
  Does it? I'm skeptical. In fact, we apparently have more than enough money for it because we suddenly have billions to spend on war in the Middle East.
  - hansvm 3mo ago
    *hundreds to thousands of billions
- rexpop 3mo ago
  "It costs money, therefore it's impossible." You think social democrats never heard of a balanced budget? I don't know how you "fiscal conservatives" take yourselves seriously.
- wredcoll 3mo ago
  I mean, the republicans constantly pay for things nobody wants, so uh, what's the issue here?
- alex43578 3mo ago
  The vote for “more free stuff” should only be open to the half of the population that actually pays taxes. Otherwise, the takers will inevitably vote to take more.
vor_ 3mo ago
Yet we apparently have money for military parades and wars and ballrooms. Go figure.
- greyface- 3mo ago
  There are infinity dollars in the Federal Reserve. Pay-for requirements are a concern troll bludgeon used against only politically disfavored spending. Taxation (on the federal level) does not pay for services, but merely counteracts the inflationary effect of their provision in an indirect way. It's indirect enough that those who disregard it are not politically punished.
janalsncm 3mo ago
On the healthcare front it’s not even a question. We are already paying via insurance and deductibles and copays etc. W2s don’t see most of the cost because their company pays it.
thisisit 3mo ago
It might come as a shock to you then that running government or military or any government service requires “somebody else needs to pay for them”. Let’s get rid of those too. Long live anarchy. Fact is people who spout this nonsense are simply selfish people with “F you, got mine” mindset. They hide their selfishness in garb and call others socialist.
throwaway173738 3mo ago
I guess the rich people will have to cope with one less super-yacht this year.
- alex43578 3mo ago
  You’re welcome to give all your money away first, then worry about taking others.
  - hilariously 3mo ago
    You a temporarily embarrassed billionaire? Paying their fair share in taxes (corporate and otherwise) is far from "taking all their money away".
    - red-iron-pine 3mo ago
      if tech bro billionaires are posting anywhere it's probably HN... but lets be real, they pay shillbots e.g. 50% or more internet traffic is now bot: https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/about-us/newsroom/2025-imperva-bad-bot-report-ai-internet-traffic https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/about-us/newsroom/2025-imperva-b...
    - alex43578 3mo ago
      The top 1% alone are 40% of the federal income tax receipts. 40% of the population pays 0% in income taxes, often receiving credits and refunds. I’m all for everyone contributing: one side looks like it’s contributing 40% already. How much more do you think should be taken from them to give to the people that currently contribute 0?
      - cindyllm 3mo ago
        [dead]
      - hilariously 3mo ago
        Why do you think the top 1% pays that much in tax? Because we impose arbitrary taxes on them or because they get the vast amount of the wealth as well? What's the top income tax bracket? Does it go up to Jeff Bezos levels or does it taper off quite a far amount below that? How much do you value a stable society that doesn't promote mass death? What percentage of the wealthiest's income should we recognize comes from a world that is stable and peaceable because of opportunities for us all?

NDlurker 3mo ago

Better to spend money on helping our neighbors than going around the world murdering people

pixl97 3mo ago
[flagged]
alex43578 3mo ago
Does free housing help people? The state of “the projects” in every metro would say otherwise. Does free food help people? Most Americans are already overweight, and far, far more die every year from diseases of excess consumption than hunger/malnutrition. Furthermore, when you give them food stamps, they try to sell and defraud the program to buy drugs or alcohol. We already “help” these people to the tune of many billions of dollars a year - let’s ask they make some cultural changes before we dive even deeper into debt as a nation.
- hilariously 3mo ago
  >Does free housing help people? Studies say yes. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8513528/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8513528/ Your vibes and general lack of empathy don't make you correct.
  - 9x39 3mo ago
    That disabled non-producers go to the ER less if given an apartment is true doesn't make it empathetic or correct to build enormous unproductive spending networks under the label of homelessness, either. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homelessness-spending-audit-24b-five-years-didnt-consistently-track-outcomes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homeles... $50,000 a year per homeless with minimal, if any, result - if it's empathy, it's suicidal empathy to emit those kinds of funds without results year after year into systems that have sprung up to capture them and ask for more.
- cindyllm 3mo ago
  [dead]
- NDlurker 3mo ago
  Have you ever met anyone who's disabled and living off of SSI? We should be doing more to help them.

urbnspacecowboy 3mo ago

"Somebody else needs to pay for" warmongering, too, yet there's nowhere near as much hand-wringing about how "somebody else needs to pay for them".

acdha 3mo ago

You’re confusing free to the user with free to the government. Those are all great examples of things which make huge differences in the lives of the people who need them while having no meaningful impact on taxpayers (forget Jeff Bezos, none of us would significantly change our lives if we paid for childcare or housing out of general fund revenue, and that’s before you factor in how much money we’d save getting better treatment with universal healthcare — every time I’ve done the math comparing us with Denmark, it’s been roughly even once you factor in how much we pay for insurance). Part of how you can tell it’s not the cost motivating opposition is that this concern is never applied to defense spending.

jmyeet 3mo ago

This is such a straw man argument. Consider health care. The US spends by far the most per-capita on health care of any OECD country [1]. It's roughly 50% more than the number 2 on the list, which is Switzerland, a notoriously expensive country. Yet (almost?) every other country on that list has universal healthcare. Yet life expectancy is lower than Costa Rica [2] and generally health outcomes are worse in the US than most OECD nations. So providing universal healthcare would actually be cheaper overall but it would destroy a health insurance companies, which are nothing more than parasitic rent-seekers. There would be less spending per capita but a lot of that spending would be made by the government rather than companies. So you'd need to tax to cover that cost, which would be significant, but it would be overall cheaper. Now consider housing. We treat it as a speculative investment rather than something to provide shelter. There is absolutely no reason for it to be as expensive as it is. All we're doing is a massive wealth transfer from the young and poor to the old and rich. Yet we, as a society, choose to prioritize landlord and speculator profits over people, quite literally, dying in the street. Food? We produce an abundance of food, more than we can eat. There is absolutely no reason anyone should go hungry in any OECD nation, ever. We destroy food to protect profits. As for income, people generally want to be paid enough to live on, something that's becomign increasingly difficult. And again, we choose minting billionaires at a stupendous rate (and now trillionaires) over paying people a living wage. [1]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-glance-2025_a894f72e/full-report/health-expenditure-per-capita_affe6b0a.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-gla... [2]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-glance-2025_a894f72e/full-report/life-expectancy-at-birth_8a8dee48.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-gla...

cassonmars 3mo ago
The problem with attempting to provide universal healthcare in the united states is that, despite health professionals attesting to the necessity and validity of certain health related topics, the current administration in particular is very keen about stripping away access to these forms of care, as far as they legally can (medicare/medicaid, VA, federal funding). UHC requires the removal of politicians from qualified input, and this country's politicians love nothing more than to get overly involved in things they know nothing about.

King-Aaron 3mo ago

> The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. This line of thinking is exactly why America is sliding backwards. It is not a problem to pay for things provide a net benefit to society.

anubistheta 3mo ago

Exactly. Giving people free stuff is extremely popular. If people actually want those things, we can collective open our wallets and pay for it. But that changes people's opinions quite radically.

vor_ 3mo ago
Does it? I'm skeptical. In fact, we apparently have more than enough money for it because we suddenly have billions to spend on war in the Middle East.
- hansvm 3mo ago
  *hundreds to thousands of billions
rexpop 3mo ago
"It costs money, therefore it's impossible." You think social democrats never heard of a balanced budget? I don't know how you "fiscal conservatives" take yourselves seriously.
wredcoll 3mo ago
I mean, the republicans constantly pay for things nobody wants, so uh, what's the issue here?
alex43578 3mo ago
The vote for “more free stuff” should only be open to the half of the population that actually pays taxes. Otherwise, the takers will inevitably vote to take more.

vor_ 3mo ago

Yet we apparently have money for military parades and wars and ballrooms. Go figure.

greyface- 3mo ago
There are infinity dollars in the Federal Reserve. Pay-for requirements are a concern troll bludgeon used against only politically disfavored spending. Taxation (on the federal level) does not pay for services, but merely counteracts the inflationary effect of their provision in an indirect way. It's indirect enough that those who disregard it are not politically punished.

janalsncm 3mo ago

On the healthcare front it’s not even a question. We are already paying via insurance and deductibles and copays etc. W2s don’t see most of the cost because their company pays it.

thisisit 3mo ago

It might come as a shock to you then that running government or military or any government service requires “somebody else needs to pay for them”. Let’s get rid of those too. Long live anarchy. Fact is people who spout this nonsense are simply selfish people with “F you, got mine” mindset. They hide their selfishness in garb and call others socialist.

throwaway173738 3mo ago

I guess the rich people will have to cope with one less super-yacht this year.

alex43578 3mo ago
You’re welcome to give all your money away first, then worry about taking others.
- hilariously 3mo ago
  You a temporarily embarrassed billionaire? Paying their fair share in taxes (corporate and otherwise) is far from "taking all their money away".
  - red-iron-pine 3mo ago
    if tech bro billionaires are posting anywhere it's probably HN... but lets be real, they pay shillbots e.g. 50% or more internet traffic is now bot: https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/about-us/newsroom/2025-imperva-bad-bot-report-ai-internet-traffic https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/about-us/newsroom/2025-imperva-b...
  - alex43578 3mo ago
    The top 1% alone are 40% of the federal income tax receipts. 40% of the population pays 0% in income taxes, often receiving credits and refunds. I’m all for everyone contributing: one side looks like it’s contributing 40% already. How much more do you think should be taken from them to give to the people that currently contribute 0?
    - cindyllm 3mo ago
      [dead]
    - hilariously 3mo ago
      Why do you think the top 1% pays that much in tax? Because we impose arbitrary taxes on them or because they get the vast amount of the wealth as well? What's the top income tax bracket? Does it go up to Jeff Bezos levels or does it taper off quite a far amount below that? How much do you value a stable society that doesn't promote mass death? What percentage of the wealthiest's income should we recognize comes from a world that is stable and peaceable because of opportunities for us all?