# How do we actually address rampant income inequality? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303 "2016-02-17T00:00:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/41 "2016-02-17T17:24:27Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Being better off than 99% of everyone who has every lived, and 90% of the people now living is a very low standard? That is just making those words meaningless. This is the difference between a liberal and a conservative outlook I think. Conservatives see us all coming out of the dirt and muck of the world and think we’ve come so far, why rock the boat. See how much better off we are now compared to then or compared to so many others? In contrast Liberals are seemingly never happy or contented on where we currently are, there is always something negative to point to that needs to change and improve. There is something inherently ungrateful with this outlook and attitude, but it’s also one of the greatest forces for progress in the world. This is the impulse that impels us to do better than we are, to move higher up the mountain, closer to nurvana. Even if we won’t ever get there, the journey to try makes us better and better off. The idea of staying still with the status quo is the kind of attitude that preserves employer based healthcare that is double the costs of the world with tens of millions less people covered and the highest medical related bankruptcy in the world. I can hold two ideas in my head at once, I acknowledge that we have come far and are much better off than we’d ever been, but I am not contented to stick to this local peak, I want us to move ever higher. And for this reason, among many others, I cannot be a conservative. I am not lazy enough to sit in place or want that for the nation. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/42 "2016-02-17T17:28:21Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Eliminate right to work laws. Republicans have been quite successful in diminishing the power of organized labor, meaning that most people work for whatever the company happens to feel like giving you. > > Increase the estate tax, lower the threshold at which estates are taxed, and close loopholes used to avoid them. > > Government-run health care for all, paid for with taxes. Once corporations don’t have to pay for health care benefits, they can either lower their prices, pay their employees more, or hire more of them. > > Undo all of the Bush tax cuts. Organized labor has to compete globally, there is no point to having a union represent a factory if they can move the factory to Vietnam. The estate tax will do nothing for income inequality since having relatives pass away and leave you an inheritance is regular occurrence for very few people. Having government take over healthcare is just changing who pays. When you get your paycheck instead of a deduction that says healthcare you have one that says healthcare tax. There is no net benefit. The Bush tax cuts decreased taxes for [all income quintiles.](http://www.npr.org/2012/07/10/156493984/bush-tax-cuts-the-new-middle-class-norm) Making poor and middle class people pay more money in taxes is not a way to help them. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/43 "2016-02-17T17:32:23Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Many, or even most, people say that it is morally correct to help the poor and needy. And yet, most people don’t. Sure, they’d _like_ to donate, but they have to take care of their own families first. Sure, they’d _like_ to volunteer at a food bank or other project, but they just don’t have the time. After all, they work all week and need time to relax on the weekends. > > Given that most people like the idea of fulfilling moral obligations – _in theory_, but do little to nothing to do it, it falls upon _you_ who ‘take that duty seriously’ to put in the time and money. Are you OK with that, putting in more than your fair share? Or do you say to poor people, ‘Sorry. I did my part. If you’re starving it’s other people’s fault.’? Or should there be some sort of mechanism where people of good moral character (and others) contribute to the well-being of the country and its citizens? Part of the reason I want some way to help the homeless get off the street is my own distaste for seeing them or being around them. I consider most of the chronic homeless population blighted examples of humanity, I don’t want to or like giving change on the street to any of them and resent being solicited. But if a portion of my taxes went towards the project of clearing them out of the streets (self interest to have less blighted humans polluting public spaces) I’d be ok with that. I’d rather have the public pay for some space to put them that is not on the streets, and some food to live than have them dot downtown areas or set up zombie camps of the walking dead. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/44 "2016-02-17T17:36:58Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Organized labor has to compete globally, there is no point to having a union represent a factory if they can move the factory to Vietnam. Tell that to the Germans and Japanese, and a whole bunch or European-based car manufacturers. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/45 "2016-02-17T17:41:45Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > It should be noted that when Clinton took office the sharp upswing in the economy was allready well underway, by the time he left office it was still fairly healthy but on a downward trend. I think any president would have done well durring that same period. He is getting too much credit for being in the right place at the right time. I still think he did a good job overall as president. One of the most annoying things I hear from partisans is that the policies of X president were beneficial and had a direct \*\*causal \*\*relationship to some positive happenings in the nations economy that has no such bearing. Clinton was in the right place at the right time. Bush did not cause high gas prices when he was in office, Obamas recovery is not meaningfully different from what a Romney recovery would have been. It seems like 90% of such statements are empty and only there to try to convince us that THEIR party or guy would be better when the policies they want are completely unmoored from what they say they are linked to. On talk radio people rail against Obama all the time for his anemic recovery, ignoring that it’s also one of the longest recoveries, ignoring that the bulk of the reason it has been anemic in many areas are due to forces far beyond the presidency. The scale of disingenuousness is off the charts. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/46 "2016-02-17T17:42:39Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Organized labor has to compete globally, there is no point to having a union represent a factory if they can move the factory to Vietnam. > The estate tax will do nothing for income inequality since having relatives pass away and leave you an inheritance is regular occurrence for very few people. > Having government take over healthcare is just changing who pays. When you get your paycheck instead of a deduction that says healthcare you have one that says healthcare tax. There is no net benefit. > The Bush tax cuts decreased taxes for [all income quintiles.](http://www.npr.org/2012/07/10/156493984/bush-tax-cuts-the-new-middle-class-norm) Making poor and middle class people pay more money in taxes is not a way to help them. This whole “we’ve got to compete in the race for the bottom” argument is crapola. We don’t need to lower our wages, the third world has to raise theirs. The estate tax will reduce the number of people at the top whose only reason to be at the top was in their selection of parents. Make it to the top- great for you. When you die, some of it comes back to the rest of us. Having state-run healthcare will provide the benefits of the economy of scale. Corporations will compete for workers based on wages and working conditions and not have them essentially serfs sticking around for health benefits. Sure, all quintiles had somewhat lower taxes. But the upper quintile made out like bandits. That they dropped some loose change on the way out of the vaults was of little consequence. End the tax cuts and use the proceeds to improve infrastructure. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/47 "2016-02-17T17:44:32Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I cannot be a conservative. I am not lazy enough to sit in place… This is something I think about quite often – every time I hear a Conservative say, ‘Well why should you work if you’re getting _free money?_’ (And yes, it’s always a Conservative who says/posts it.) Not working, even if I was receiving this mythical ‘free money’ and didn’t have to, would drive me mad. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/48 "2016-02-17T17:44:40Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > This is the difference between a liberal and a conservative outlook I think. Conservatives see us all coming out of the dirt and muck of the world and think we’ve come so far, why rock the boat. See how much better off we are now compared to then or compared to so many others? > > In contrast Liberals are seemingly never happy or contented on where we currently are, there is always something negative to point to that needs to change and improve. There is something inherently ungrateful with this outlook and attitude, but it’s also one of the greatest forces for progress in the world. This is the impulse that impels us to do better than we are, to move higher up the mountain, closer to nurvana. Even if we won’t ever get there, the journey to try makes us better and better off. The idea of staying still with the status quo is the kind of attitude that preserves employer based healthcare that is double the costs of the world with tens of millions less people covered and the highest medical related bankruptcy in the world. > I can hold two ideas in my head at once, I acknowledge that we have come far and are much better off than we’d ever been, but I am not contented to stick to this local peak, I want us to move ever higher. And for this reason, among many others, I cannot be a conservative. I am not lazy enough to sit in place or want that for the nation. How did we get to a place where poor people have more than most rich people used to have? The answer is economic growth. Little by little improvements, each improvement compounding until huge and lasting improvements are made. By keeping the economy growing we ensure that what once only the richest of the rich could afford, in a generation the poor will have too. In the original Wall Street Gordon Gecko had a cell phone to illustrate how amazingly rich he was, now most poor americans have one that in 100 times better than he did. That was not accomplished by redistributing what we had then, but by creating and innovating. Steve Jobs made billions making cell phone better and more accessible and in doing so made standards of living better for everyone. This is how society improves, not by the government deciding that some people have too much money and attempting to take it from them. That is why I can never be a liberal, stagnation and welfare are no substitute economic growth. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/49 "2016-02-17T17:49:52Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Tell that to the Germans and Japanese, and a whole bunch or European-based car manufacturers. Apparently, they have already gotten the memo, since they have opened 15 auto plants in the US and none of them are unionized. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/50 "2016-02-17T17:50:19Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > That is why I can never be a liberal, stagnation and welfare are no substitute economic growth. Ah yes, the _American Dream_ as seen from the entitled middle class white pov. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/51 "2016-02-17T17:50:22Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There is no good mechanism by which to tax wealth. I agree, but we could tax interest, dividends, and capital gains at the same rate we tax income. That would help a great deal. We should also stop taxing corporations at all; this would achieve 4 things that I can see.: [ol] [li]It would remove the whole double taxation argument that is used to keep capital gains / dividend taxes low.[/li][li]It would remove the incentives for companies to stockpile money overseas.[/li][li]It would remove some of the arguments used to justify the political rights given to corporations.[/li][li]It would be more progressive, as taxes on corporations are just passed on to consumers instead of on the income derived where it should be.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/52 "2016-02-17T17:56:02Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Apparently, they have already gotten the memo, since they have opened 15 auto plants in the US and none of them are unionized. > [@](#): > > But the case of German automakers — BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen — tells a different story. Each company produces vehicles not only in Germany, but also in “transplant” factories in the U.S. The former are characterized by high wages and high union membership; the U.S. plants pay lower wages and are located in so-called “right-to-work” (anti-union) states. > > It turns out that “inevitability” has nothing to do with the differing conditions; the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race. [http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/tale-two-systems](http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/tale-two-systems) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/53 "2016-02-17T18:04:15Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > In the original Wall Street Gordon Gecko had a cell phone to illustrate how amazingly rich he was, now most poor americans have one that in 100 times better than he did. The original mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, cost $4,000 – about $9,000 in today’s money. Service cost $50/month plus 40 cents/minute (in 1984 dollars). What $9,000 thing today will cost $25 in 30 years? (Incidentally, Steve Jobs, whom you mentioned, aligned with Liberals. He was also the son of a Syrian Muslim immigrant.) As far as stagnation, that’s not a Liberal thing. Liberals are all about progress. Conservatives want things to stay the same. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/54 "2016-02-17T18:05:08Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > How did we get to a place where poor people have more than most rich people used to have? The answer is economic growth. Little by little improvements, each improvement compounding until huge and lasting improvements are made. By keeping the economy growing we ensure that what once only the richest of the rich could afford, in a generation the poor will have too. > In the original Wall Street Gordon Gecko had a cell phone to illustrate how amazingly rich he was, now most poor americans have one that in 100 times better than he did. That was not accomplished by redistributing what we had then, but by creating and innovating. Steve Jobs made billions making cell phone better and more accessible and in doing so made standards of living better for everyone. This is how society improves, not by the government deciding that some people have too much money and attempting to take it from them. That is why I can never be a liberal, stagnation and welfare are no substitute economic growth. The majority of consumer goods don’t need to be redistributed, but something like healthcare costs and education does. Consumer goods will become cheaper and accessible by more people, we do not need government policy to make that happen, the market will. That is not the same dynamic for healthcare. IF we look at total expenses, healthcare for most people is taking up a higher and higher percentage share of their total expenses over time. Part of that is the system we have, part of that is that healthcare is NOT the same type of market as the market for cell phones. To treat individuals decisions to not spend 800 dollars on a phone vs a 300 dollar phone the same as someone deciding not to spend a 100k to save their kids/spouses life if the medical bills mount is not the same (or an insurance company being forced to dole out 700 times the original cost of a drug because Schkreli wants it). Life and death make for a captured consumer audience in a way other goods and services do not. As for a universal basic income, whether the economy would be better off with one or without one is an empirical question. Would the US be better if we eliminated government financing of k-12 education? Leave that all up to individuals and private charter schools? We could lower property taxes and taxes generally. What about people who were not paying enough taxes to get back in the first place on the poorer side? What if they can’t afford to send their kids to school? Just let the kids wilt and wallow because of the resource constraints of their parents? Take the kids away? This world view is a fantasy world. As a society, we want some baseline level of education, and will pay to ensure it, by confiscating the the resources of the population through taxes and paying for services. My constraint on the extent of that project is whether it makes us better off or worse off, more prosperous or less prosperous. It’s not based on rigid principles about government not being involved in X or Y being ideal. Those principles need to be based on empirical reality, an the presumptions of conservatives and libertarians are not enough. You can have a bias for a more hands off approach, especially in areas where it’s clear that a more hands off approach leads to more prosperity, but the principles should ALWAYS be directly tied to actual results, that way if your ideas about what should be done turn out to be inferior policy, you can change them. And that encompasses BOTH expanding and retracting government. Why some people think having an ideological diode where reality itself only flows one way and not the other is beyond me. It’s a closed off mind, and a recipe for wrong answers, a gimped toolset to improve the world. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/55 "2016-02-17T18:11:26Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > First, do you think it’s a problem at all? Yes. > [@](#): > > I used to not be overly concerned about it. I was extremely sympathetic to this thatcher sort of argument here: Yes, I would rather be unequally rich than equally poor. But as you note, that is not what is going on anymore. > [@](#): > > So what is the solution? A universal basic income? > > Free college? > just lower tax rates to make a more (channels larry kudlow) “pro growth” economy? > Have everyone invested in the stock market by law so that not ONLY the wealthier are reaping the rewards there? > > What? I think we have to identify the problem first. Is this merely a matter of buggy whips making way for the automobile and the attendant dislocation associated with that? I mean we are definitely living in transformative times. Is this a matter of the decline of labor unions and the bargaining power of American labor compared to capital? I mean we have definitely seen a divergence of median worker pay and worker productivity. Is this a matter of the pressure of competition from international labor? Much of the labor intensive industries seem to have moved to cheaper more OSHA friendly environments. I think we need a renewed labor movement. We have gone too far in the anti-union direction. Sure we can’t let unions hold onto a buggy whip economy but capital has been running away with the lion’s share of the increases in productivity and there seems to be no way to stop them without some sort of collective action. > [@](#): > > A lot of solutions are bandied about that seem to me incapable of putting the slightest dent in the problems and distributions of wealth. I like Bernie, but free daycare and public college does not seem like a solution, especially not for the millions of people that are too dumb to graduate any college in the first place. They used to be able to work in a factory, where do they work now? The inconvenient truth is that my children and grandchildren are no longer competing with their classmates or their peers within the state or even the country. They will be competing with their peers all around the world. Right now below average people in America live below average lives by American standards. They will increasingly be living below average lives by global standards. The American standard of living is worth protecting I just don’t know how you do it over the long term. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/56 "2016-02-17T18:12:33Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This whole “we’ve got to compete in the race for the bottom” argument is crapola. We don’t need to lower our wages, the third world has to raise theirs. > > The estate tax will reduce the number of people at the top whose only reason to be at the top was in their selection of parents. Make it to the top- great for you. When you die, some of it comes back to the rest of us. > > Having state-run healthcare will provide the benefits of the economy of scale. Corporations will compete for workers based on wages and working conditions and not have them essentially serfs sticking around for health benefits. > > Sure, all quintiles had somewhat lower taxes. But the upper quintile made out like bandits. That they dropped some loose change on the way out of the vaults was of little consequence. End the tax cuts and use the proceeds to improve infrastructure. The third world needs to raise their wages, that is brilliant, why hasn’t anyone thought of that before? The estate tax has no bearing on income inequality which was what the OP was about. Adding an higher estate tax will raise very little money and just cause the really rich to be more careful about estate planning. Large insurance companies are already big enough to benefit from the economy of scale. Health care benefits make up around 11% of compensation. Companies already compete on the basis of wages and working conditions. The Bush tax cuts cut the top bracket from 4.6% 39.6% to 35%. While the middle tax rates went down 3%. It makes no sense to say that 4.6% is making out like a bandit and 3% is loose change. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/57 "2016-02-17T18:15:03Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m curious, what did Reagan and Bush do that the first President Bush, Clinton, or Obama didn’t do (or didn’t do that the others did)? Why did you single those two particular presidents out of the last five? Were there policies they pursued that lead to greater income inequality? If so, what were they? Deficit financed tax cuts. This leads to higher deficits and debt. The great lie of supply side economics is not that lower taxes stimulates growth, this is obviously true at least at the margins. The great lie was that they increased tax revenue so you didn’t need to cut spending in order to cut taxes/ The stimulat6ive effect of the tax cuts would lead to greater financial activity that would more than make up for the lower rate of taxation. This allowed them to pass politically popular tax cuts without having to make politically unpopular spending cuts. Telling people that they can have their cake and eat it too is a pretty good way to get reelected. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/58 "2016-02-17T18:17:01Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There is no good mechanism by which to tax wealth. There may not be a simple mechanism to tax wealth but there are good ways to do it ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/59 "2016-02-17T18:19:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If it’s public debt you’re worried about, there’s no question that Obama’s been the biggest deficit-spender in history. Go grab the [OMB’s Historical Table 1.1](https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals) and chart out receipts, outlays, and the surplus or deficit columns. Clinton’s second term was a rare anomaly. > > It’s interesting to [read articles like this](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/02/us/president-s-budget-proposal-overview-clinton-offers-his-budget-battle-begins.html?pagewanted=all) and see how things panned out. “The White House projects a surplus of $393 billion in 2009” HA! Missed it by that much! I think it is fair to only apply the effects of their policies rather than the effects of a prior administration’s policies. If we use that metric then tax cuts plus increases in military spending done by Reagan and GWB are in fact much worse than the effect of Obamacare or anything other policy he has implemented. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/60 "2016-02-17T18:22:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I didn’t say just compare them to _poor_ Americans from 1940. Compare them to wealthy Americans from 1940 if you like. When 2/3 of the Americans that live below the poverty line have satellite or cable TV, I think there’s something wrong with the label “poverty line”. > > Quite low. The federal government takes money from me to redistribute as it sees fit largely because it has more men with guns to take it than I have to defend it. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t give a dime to the federal government for any means-tested benefits. I’d grant the states considerable latitude to impose taxes and enact welfare programs as they see fit, and I’d probably move to the state that did the least of both of those things. So you want all the poor to move to the few states that have social safety nets while those states with no taxes or social safety nets attract all the people who don’t want o pay taxes and don’t need a social safety net? So you would be OK with children dying on the hospital entrance for lack of SCHIP and Medicaid? You would be OK with children starving or freezing for lack of food stamps or HUD heat subsidies? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303.md?page=4)