The ‘W’ Word, Re-engaged - ["Welfare"]

The ‘W’ Word, Re-engaged - NYTimes.com.("Welfare," that is)

These colliding instincts — pro-safety net, anti-welfare — each draw on legitimate concerns. One side sees poverty amid plenty, and an economy that heavily favors the few even when times are good. It trusts the impulse to help.

The other fears taxation, warning that it can quash initiative and choke an economy. This side also stresses moral hazards, warning that while feeding the hungry may be necessary, it can discourage people from feeding themselves.

“This tension waxes and wanes — but it remains a tension, absolutely,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, a researcher at the Brookings Institution. “Americans understand that some people are poor through no fault of their own. On the other hand, they suspect that some people aren’t doing all they could to help themselves. It’s pretty deep-seated in our national mindset, this belief that you can succeed.”

So let's talk about how we might solve this.  As readers of this blog know, not all taxes are created equal: the ones we rely on currently do have a tendency to quash initiative and choke the economy.   But that doesn't mean that the same is true of all taxes.  The taxes that are exceptions to that rule, though, turn out to be ones which don't favor the few, and whose utilization could reduce poverty greatly. 

The powers that be don't want to touch a system that works satisfactorily for them, and so all we're likely to hear about is the so-called "FairTax," which would greatly reduce taxes for our highest income people and increase them for most of the rest.

SNAFU?  Yes.  FUBAR?  No.  

But it is time to move toward implementation of Henry George's remedy.  Start by reading his books, "Progress & Poverty" and "Social Problems" and some of his speeches.  You'll come away newly educated and hopeful.  You'll know why we have poverty, and how to end it.  You'll know why our economy is limping so badly, and how to fix it.  You'll know why we experience booms and busts, and how we can prevent them through radical tax reform -- that is, tax reform that goes to the root of the problem.

Not FUBAR.  There IS a solution.