Why do liberals and Dem's want to lower the standard of living in America for social programs?

Question

The moral of the story is that aggressive welfare systems, funded by high taxes, has proven to lower the standard of living in Europe to the point that even the poor in the United States enjoy more comfort than that of the average European.

If Americans won't learn from Europes mistake, we are likely to repeat it.

http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=1608

Answer 1

The are ignorant of basic economic principles and they don't understand that people respond to incentives. As Milton Friedman once quipped, "If you pay people to be poor, then you should expect more poor people."

I don't think liberals actually want to drag America into the mud; I think they really believe they can do a better job "this time." Pete du Pont compared them to alcoholics. An alcoholic drinks beer and is unhappy with the results so he switches to gin. He's unhappy with those results so he switches to wine, scotch, ripple, whatever - he always gets the same result.

Answer 2

Wow, what a misreading of history.

As George McGovern wrote: "Virtually every step forward in our history has been a liberal initiative taken over conservative opposition: civil rights, Social Security, Medicare, rural electrification, the establishment of a minimum wage, collective bargaining, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and federal aid to education, including the land-grant colleges, guaranteed bank deposits, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Park Service, the National School Lunch Program, the Voting Rights Act, and the graduated income tax. Many of these innovations were eventually embraced by conservatives only after it became clear that they had overwhelming public approval for the simple reason that almost every American benefited from them. Every one of these liberal efforts strengthened our democracy and our quality of life....

Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Adlai Stevenson used the instruments of government to benefit the citizenry of America, and they also understood that America had responsibilities to the rest of the world..

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." And Abraham Lincoln said of this founding document that it "gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time." Liberal ideas, in other words, have informed American politics from Jefferson to Lincoln, and we are no less in need of the vitality and redeeming strength of the liberal spirit today...

The genius of American politics has always been the creative tension between our two great political philosophies, liberalism and conservatism. If either of these traditions is diminished, the American nation is diminished."

Answer 3

it's a very one sided article/study...

where's the mention of what they have that our poor don't?

like preventive healthcare? (which is worth much more than a TV or air conditioner, which are $100 bucks total each... find health insurance for $200 a year)

and the biggest difference it states is "size of living space," but it doesn't address the quality of the living space?

I know many poor people that live in large old family houses that are about to fall down... I wouldn't want to live there, even though it's bigger than my house (which is structurally sound)

this sounds like yet another job of getting every little fact that supports you and putting it in a study... and completely ignoring everything that doesn't agree with you... zero objectivity...

I may as well cite Michael Moore, if you're bringing this to the table as fact...

Answer 4

Since when did our tax dollars pay solely for welfare programs? Haven't you heard of the military industrial complex? That's where most of it goes...a pretty small percentage goes to actually helping citizens of this country, and that's what should change. The argument over who gets taxed more is trivial and a means to distract us from the fact that no matter who gets taxed, the money goes toward objectives that have no benefit for the government or people of the United States.

Answer 5

Because they believe in doing what's best for the community. I'll never forget Hillary Clinton's "It takes a village to raise a child" speech. In a community, people work together for the common good. Also, being rich isn't good for the community either. How many times have you heard Liberals talking about the greater divide between rich and poor and how we need to lessen the divide?

Unfortunately, those are the same philosophies of Karl Marx. For that matter the word "communism" comes from the word "community". It all sounds great, which is why a lot of fools buy into it, and why political leaders exploit it.

Answer 6

His article doesn't support his conclusion. Where is his evidence that the standard of living in Europe was higher before the various welfare programs and when their taxes were lower?

Answer 7

The average American is making 1800 dollars less per year than he was when Bush took office in 2000. American credit card debt is at record highs.

Excuse me, are you using "fuzzy" math or am I just misunderestimating you?

Working Americans ALWAYS do better with a Democratic Administration. ALWAYS.

That is why labor unions always support Democrats. It is also why African Americans and other minority ethnicities always support Democrats.

If you are one of those working class slobs who support the Republican party which, of course, is the party of big biz, you are really shooting yourself, your children and your extended family in the foot. Oh well, I guess we will never cure stupid.

Answer 8

We don't. And maybe check out that fabulous standard of living...start with North St. Louis....then Southside Chicago....then take a good look in the hollows of Southwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky...and finish up in the Anacostia part of Washington, D.C. (if you are really brave)...

not really much we could do to lower it much more...

We sure don't have to worry about Europe's mistakes...we have plenty of our own.

Answer 9

poor people make liberals sad! boohoohoo! i understand some people have a run of bad luck and need help it happens i'm all for it but, if you have seven kids and can't afford to feed them, you should have thought about that before you had seven kids. don't punish the kids but, i don't want to buy the irresponsible parents a new car and let them sit at home collecting a check while the rest of us work our butts off.

Answer 10

If you think helping hungry kids and elderly people in your own country survive is lowering your standard of living, then so be it. I will lower mine to help out. To me a hungry child is more important than a few of my dollars.