Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
No. I wouldn't say that we need a government program for every conceivable reason that someone may be struggling.
Let me try to articulate my feeling this way...I don't think we need government programs to guarantee equality of outcome. But I think it might be worthwhile to have safety nets that guarantee more equality of opportunity.
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I think if you put your feelings aside for a moment and look at what you've written you'll realize that you are arguing myopically for more of what you constantly rail against simply because you have an experience or a tragedy close to you that you feel needs being corrected....this is how all of these "safety nets" get set up, some politician finds a sad story, demands that this "never, ever happen to anyone again", proposes a government managed solution, claims anyone that disagrees is coldhearted and draconian and..... poof...we have a new government program sold to cure some societal ill...funded by tax dollars from a "general fund" that is never fully funded.... forever ...but we know how it always ends up....Jim...if you start a fund to help your friends today, I'll be the first to contribute without even knowing them....or...I could send the same money to some government agency and let it trickle through the machinations of the bureaucracy where they might end up with a tiny percentage of the original "contribution" which means many others must be made to "contribute"...of course, if you set up your "safety net to guarantee
more equality of [U]opportunity"...you authorize the government to take and spend from others as/when it sees fit and where it sees need for equality of opportunity...if it's a local institution, you may have some measure of control but if it's the federal government, I doubt you'll like how it picks and chooses eventually and there is nothing that you can do once that ball gets rolling....this is a microcosm of what's wrong with the way that government inherently operates, a symptom of how we've been conditioned to "feel" that wrongs should be righted and not only don't you seem to see it, you are participating in it and feeding the beast,
