Well, Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek have made a case for a negative income tax, where if one is below a certain income level, one recieves a portion of the difference back. While not truly libertarian, such a system would, IMO, be better than the current one. I think that we won’t know what private charity is capable of unless we give it a chance. This does not mean that we should immediately discontinue all aid, but that we should provide aid in a manner that interferes with private charity to as small an extent as possible.
We did. It’s called Reaganomics.
Just out of complete idle curiousity, how many in this thread, particularly those who criticize people who operate under a libertarian ethic, would be willing to post here their 1999 AGI, and their total donations to private charity for last year (cash, time, or in-kind)?
Well, I’ll provide that in 1999 I must have made at least $1300. Can’t recall that any of it went to private charity. Although I must also admit that I wasn’t coerced into providing much public charity either. But I’m a college student, so my income really doesn’t mean much of anything, but I figured I’d get the ball rolling.
Lissener, for all of Reagan’s posturing about being a champion of the free market, spending on social programs increased drastically (fourfold, IIRC) during his time in office.
The best kept secret of trickle-down decency. I assume you have a cite?
I read it in a P. J. O’Rourke book. Don’t even know which one. And he never gives his sources, either. I’ll see if I can turn something up on the web. But, really, how do you think we racked up so much debt? You don’t honestly think that it was all from military spending, do you? A Democrat-controlled Congress wouldn’t have accepted that without compromise.
You’re suggesting that simple logic should lead me to the conclusion that Reagan quadrupled spending on social programs?
[aside]How do you respond to something like that?[/aside]
And PJO’Rourke never cites a source? He just says “Reagan quadrupled social spending” and that becomes an authoritative source?
[aside]How do you respond to something like that?[/aside]
I wasn’t saying that logic would lead you to that conclusion, just trying to alleviate your incredulity. I generally trust P. J. O’Rourke, but he is a humor writer, and while his work seems well researched, he doesn’t spend much time attributing statistics.
In any event, I would say that regardless of my lack of a cite (I’m looking) you perhaps should back up your claim that private charity was virtually unencumbered during the Reagan years. Doesn’t exactly strike me as plausible.
pld: *Just out of complete idle curiousity, how many in this thread, particularly those who criticize people who operate under a libertarian ethic, would be willing to post here their 1999 AGI, and their total donations to private charity for last year (cash, time, or in-kind)? *
Well Phil, if you want that information from others it’d be only fair to volunteer it for yourself, but I don’t mind starting. Just under $29K gross income (sorry, I forget what the “adjusted” does), 2.5% of that in cash charitable donations (not deducted—I don’t see why I shouldn’t pay my share of taxes just because I make a private consumer choice to give some income away), about 5 hours/month volunteer work. You?
From http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-212.html :
“Reagan attempted, on a program-by-program basis, to restrict eligibility to the ‘truly needy.’ States were required to set eligibility and income-verification standards. However, total welfare spending continued to grow, and benefit levels remained relatively stable.”
From http://www.nationalcenter.org/TPSpending1-8.html :
“Despite the fact that there were 1.7 million fewer people unemployed in 1989 (President Reagan’s last budget year) than there were at the end of 1981, federal welfare spending was nine percent higher under the 1989 budget than the 1981 one. Federal welfare expenditures during Reagan’s eight budget years totaled 41.0054 trillion (1991 dollars).”
I don’t think there’s any debate that total welfare spending increased under Reagan; it’s increased under every president for 30 years. He did cut the rate of increase, but that’s a different animal entirely.
Where’s the cite that it quadrupled? Where’s the cite adjusting the increase for inflation, which I assume is part of the reason it increases under every president?
If he cut the rate of increase, it seems to me that it’s unlikely that it quadrupled.
Kimstu, I didn’t specifically ask for it, I asked how many would be willing to post it. 
I suspect there are a fair number of so-called liberals who would be less than proud of their own contributions to charity.
I don’t happen to keep a 1040 on me, but off the top of my head, my AGI (excluding my wife’s income) was in the neighborhood of $42,000. Contributions to charitable and benevolent organizations were probably less than $500.
Christ, lissener, I’m not even part of this little sideline between you and waterj2. I was demonstrating that cites are not exactly scarce relating to Reagan’s budget and welfare spending. Look it up yourself, if you’re that curious, but don’t just dismiss it out of hand because you personally find it unbelievable or distasteful. :rolleyes:
pld: *Kimstu, I didn’t specifically ask for it, I asked how many would be willing to post it. *
Well, ya spoke up like a man anyway when I asked, so no problem. 
Re welfare spending: I’m confused about the metric involved here for what’s referred to as “total welfare spending”. Are we talking absolute dollars, or some percentage? Because if it’s the former, then of course total welfare spending has been going up: the population’s increasing, so the absolute number of people on welfare is too. If we’re talking welfare spending as a percentage of total expenditure, that’s another matter entirely. I would be surprised if that ratio significantly increased under Reagan, considering the large increases in percentage of total spending that went to the military at that time.
lissener, I’ve got to agree with Phil; you can quite easily search for yourself, not that it’s relevant to this thread. As a matter of fact, I find the whole side discussion to be quite off-topic. It seems to have sprung up with your inaccurate and unfair characterization of waterj2’s call for less interference with private charity as “Reaganomics.”
Now, if you can either show that statement to be valid, or tie the “Reagan’s welfare spending” question in with libertarianism per se, I’ll cut you some slack.
And BTW, pld, my AGI was about the same as yours, and I contributed (including United Way) only about $100 to private charities. However, $13,000 of my take home pay went to my ex-wife (who used some of it for my son, presumably). The rest of it generally went to whatever accounts were the furthest past due.
Kimstu, another cite I found (which I’m not gonna post, lissener can do his own homework) indicated that total Federal welfare expenditures under Reagan grew, in constant dollars, from $224 billion in 1981 to $249 billion in 1989. A big increase, but hardly quadrupling. It also indicated that Federal welfare spending as a percent of GDP fell from somewhere just over 4 percent to around 3.6 percent. (However, there were fewer people on the rolls, so expenditures per recipient would appear to be more.)
Not that any of this has anything to do with anything. There are plenty of other reasons to dislike Ronald Reagan, for heaven’s sake!
No need to get defensive, dude, I was just pointing out that the assertion that social spending was quadrupled in the Reagan years has not been backed up with an adequate cite yet. I didn’t mean to suggest that you were responsible for providing a cite, only that the cites you provided did nothing the prove the assertion.
And I’m not going to look it up, it’s not my assertion. It seems to me that the discussion should continue, disregarding water’s assertion, until he can provide a cite for it.
xenophon, all I meant to suggest was that waterj2’s statement* that we’ve never tried a such a thing is wrong, inasmuch as his proposed experiment is a very elegant decription of how the poor would be aided in a trickle-down economy.
Sorry if I obscured my point with flippancy, but I still say that we have tried it, and it doesn’t work.
*“I think that we won’t know what private charity is capable of unless we give it a chance. This does not mean that we should immediately discontinue all aid, but that we should provide aid in a manner that interferes with private charity to as small an extent as possible.”
Hmmm. Well okay, consider yourself to be cut with slack (to have had slack cut? to possess cut slack?).
I do disagree with your belief that it’s been tried to any significant degree, however. As popular as Reagan was at the time, Congress was savvy enough not to allow most of his proposed economic policies (thank goodness!).