Couldn’t agree more. Much of this entire mess could have been avoided if we had real leadership. If only.
I don’t need the $1200. I gave it away to people that do. I’m suggesting we take the pay from those that are still working and beef up the unemployment for those that have lost their jobs. More so, though, I’m asking those that are still working how much of a sacrifice they are willing to make so “we are all in this together.”
If I thought this were a real question and not a rhetorical point-scoring question, I could explain the fundamental difference between charity and a social safety net.
Call it what you want. All I see is a bunch of hand waiving saying, “create more taxes to pay for it!” when, in fact, no one needs to wait for that to start helping other people. And if you are only willing to wait for the inefficiencies of a tax system to begin supporting those that need it, I hope you sleep well at night knowing that calling for these continued lockdowns is hurting an awful lot of people. Sure, scream all you want about epidemiologists. Tell that to the millions of people struggling now while you say, “I’d really like to help, but, you know, the government won’t tax me so… sorry. Good luck though! Just think of all the lives you are saving!”
Interesting. I didn’t realize you understood so little about the difference I described. No wonder that’s all you’re seeing. Good luck with that indeed.
Because it’s worked so well in the past with the 24 trillion dollar debt? Do we make the very-well-to-do take a solemn oath pinky-swear they won’t up and leave or just nationalize their wealth?
We raise taxes, man. The bizarre ideological rigidity of the right, that taxes can drop forever but never rise, couples with the completely ahistorical belief that rich people will pull a John Galt if taxes increase.
No. We raise taxes. That’s how a responsible government deals, in times of plenty, with debt incurred in times of scarcity.
the debt was incurred because the word “budget” has no meaning in Congress. You can raise taxes all you want but it requires that you don’t exceed the amount collected on the spending side.
Only you have suggested a $20k/person tax. Nobody is suggesting that all this spending be paid off in one year, as you have proposed. So I suggest you don’t throw out a crazy proposal, have it be ignored, and then say that others support it.
Perhaps you should have proposed in your OP that the wealthiest parts of our country should give up their pay, rather than suggesting that all of us Dopers, who are low-middle-upper middle income, ought to swear off our incomes?
Decreeing that taxes can not rise will make sense the same day that decreeing that emergencies and disasters are not permitted to happen actually works in stopping them from happening.
I didn’t get $1,200. So does that make me a better or worse person than you?
I fail to understand why you insist on working people driving themselves into insolvency when there are very reasonable, well-tested, and more efficient ways of dealing with economic downturns and their human impacts.
Would you be happier if employed people who are concerned about their health are unable to eat because they have given up their paychecks? Is that what you’re after, some kind of vengeance?
First I’d suggest that since the interest rates are so low, we can pay it back very slowly to limit the impact. Next I’d suggest we use marginal tax rates to ensure most of the burden falls on the most excessive wealth of the richest Americans, not on people who work for a living.
Right, because one party doesn’t believe in income.
That’s literally untrue for our federal government.
A test of a person’s convictions is to see how much they are willing to sacrifice of themselves to maintain those convictions. If you’re conviction is the saving of lives at a high, high cost, that’s fine. Epidemiologists and other experts are telling us this lockdown will do that. Just have the courage to be one of the ones willing to pay that cost. What we will quickly find, I’m sure, is that all of a sudden people aren’t so willing to save every last life possible if it means they, themselves, will face financial ruin, or, really, significant financial pain.
If all you want to do is attack our convictions, consider asking for this to be moved to the pit. If you want to debate policy, maybe do that instead.
First of all, I find that first sentence insulting.
I’ve told you a far better plan for dealing with the economic consequences than working people giving up all their income.
As it stands, seems like your position is akin to the WWI generals who didn’t want to hear about better ways to fight the war, and insisted that the noble way to win was to senselessly throw bodies at fortified enemy lines, wave after wave of troops being mowed down in stupid frontal assaults. All because of “honor.”
You’re advocating a stupid frontal assault on the livelihoods of others, when there is so very clearly a better strategy we can use.
It’s untrue that the Federal government spends more than it takes in?
I’m discussing the logic of keeping the lockdowns in place in terms of the benefits and costs. I’ve heard a lot of talk about how much benefit there is to it and a near complete dismissal of the costs from those who have borne no costs. If your position is that the costs are worth it, that is a far more defensible position if you are the one actually having to pay those costs. In an ugly situation as the one we find ourselves, it is a fair question to ask where that balance point between ruining lives and saving other lives resides. I’m trying to find out where people think that balance point is.
Why is that first sentence insulting? You don’t think a test of convictions comes down to how much someone is willing to sacrifice for those convictions?
There are a lot of working people that have already given up their income. Not having people give up their income isn’t a choice. You realize that, I hope. Now the question is WHICH people need to give it up.
This is a horrible situation. We can open up and quite possibly cost some lives, or we can keep locked down and create a lot of misery through economic toil and quite possibly a non-zero death toll.
What I’m not seeing here is an acknowledgement that there really is a trade off that we need to make between how many additional lives we can save vs how many lives we are willing to ruin for the sake of those lives. If people want to “save as many as possible”, that’s fine. Just be willing to stand behind it yourself. If you want to say it is the government’s responsibility to take care of those we are hurting and therefore you bear no responsibility for your support of measures “save as many lives as possible”, that’s up to you.
The reason you’re not seeing your acknowledgement of a trade off is because you’re seeing this as a binary choice: you’d rather people have jobs and people die of this disease.
Everyone disagreeing with you is saying that there’s a way to substantially mitigate the economic consequences that are more effective than financial seppaku for people you seem to have a grudge against.
And frankly your posts are getting to be more and more ad hominem, so I’d ask you to cut that out.
ETA: and I find the suggestion that nobody but the unemployed or dead has borne any costs to be short sighted and highly offensive. You don’t know what anyone else in this thread has been through the last few weeks, and it is highly offensive to argue that everyone else has it easy. What an arrogant and ignorant statement.
You’re not seeing it because you’ve only offered a false either/or choice and supported it with garbage logic and ad-hominem attacks, not knowing what other people have been through.
I’ve been unemployed for 2 months now. I save and live below my means, I don’t mind belt-tightening, so I’m in no hurry to endanger myself or others to go back to work.
You can take your insinuations of hypocrisy and shove them somewhere that you would regularly see them and be forced to reflect on how dishonest and ignorant they are.