I think that one of the main reasons why the US has the complicated welfare state that it does, instead of simple cash transfers, is that unconditional cash transfers to the poor are unpopular among the general public. They make a lot of people feel like they are being taken advantage of. Instead of working like we are, these people are just mooching off of us. The government is taking our hard-earned money, which we deserve, and giving it to people who don’t deserve it. That feeling was one of the main motivations behind welfare reform in the 1990s (recall “welfare queens”). When the word “redistribution” does come up in American politics, it’s almost always as an accusation by the right against the left (like in response to Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth around” comments during the 2008 election).
If you look at the various safety net programs that the US has (alternatesources), they’re designed in a way that avoids that impression that they are just giving your money to the undeserving poor. The recipient seems deserving, because the program does some combination of the following:
help people who are especially needy, sympathetic, or helpless on their own, like children or the disabled (e.g., SSI, school lunches, CHIP). They’re the ones who really need our aid. Programs for the elderly (like Social Security) might count here too.
meet people’s basic human needs, rather than giving them money which they can spend on anything that they want (e.g., SNAP, housing assistance, Medicaid). Everyone ought to be fed; giving people food doesn’t feel like you’re being taken advantage of in the same way as giving money (and similarly with healthcare, housing, etc.). In some cases, like SNAP (food stamps), this can be pretty close to a pure cash benefit since money is fungible and pretty much everybody buys food. In other cases it involves a lot more meddling.
reward good behavior, giving money to poor people who are doing something to deserve it—especially those that are working or seeking work (e.g., EITC, TANF, job training). This category has grown the most over the past couple decades, with welfare reform (making welfare dependent on employment-seeking) and large increases to the earned income tax credit. EITC is pretty much what you’re looking for—a negative income tax—but it only applies to people who are working.
are shared benefits for everyone, not special benefits for the poor (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Alaska’s oil fund). The social insurance model fits this category. I paid into Medicare so I deserve my benefits. Anyone who gets hurt on the job and is unable to work will collect disability insurance. That’s our oil so we should share the profits. (Alaska’s program has the additional advantage of not needing tax money for funding.)
I think that all of the main safety net programs (listed on the siteslinkedabove) fit pretty cleanly within one (or more) of these four categories, except maybe Pell Grants for college expenses (which is at least loosely related to each of them, but might be better thought of as a part of the publicly funded education system).
To fit into one of these four categories, cash transfers would either need to go to everybody (which would be a huge program, e.g. $10,000 per American would require collecting 20% of GDP in taxes and then redistributing it), or only go to the working poor (which is already done with the EITC), or only go to the particularly needy (which is already done for the disabled and the elderly, and wouldn’t really work for children). Unconditional cash transfers to generic poor people just don’t poll well, and leave politicians vulnerable to political attacks.
Changes at the margin could involve increasing the size of programs that are closest to pure cash transfers (like EITC), shrinking or eliminating programs that involve more meddling (like some kinds of housing assistance), or loosening the restrictions/conditions on specific programs so that there’s less hassle in running it (e.g. eligibility requirements for SNAP). Each individual change has an obvious partisan valence. Another option is to try to make the tax system more progressive (or oppose efforts to make it less progressive) - a simple way for the government to get more money into the hands of the poor people is to collect less tax money from them in the first place. That also has an obvious partisan valence.
I think that one of the main reasons why the US has the complicated welfare state that it does, instead of simple cash transfers, is that unconditional cash transfers to the poor are unpopular among the general public.
I think that’s basically right. The unfortunate side is that lying about the nature of the programs makes the programs less effective. Rationalizations become implementations. A dishonest rationalization keeps people focused on the wrong things, and doing the wrong things.
I think there are two good arguments for a direct redistribution, one common, one not.
The common one is helping the poor. Yes, conservatives want to help the poor too.
The uncommon one is based on justice. Except for propertarian ideologues, I don’t think the proposition that everyone has an equal right to a share in natural resources is that controversial. It’s just that few talk about. As I related earlier, even a Bill OReilly can get on board with that. It’s a peculiarity that there is widespread support for the proposition with respect to “our” oil, whoever “we” might be, but few follow the implications, as Thomas Paine, Henry George, and others have.
There is a final political argument that “this is better than what we do now”. Not quite as satisfying to anyone, but it shouldn’t be dismissed thereby. Political compromise by definition doesn’t align exactly with everyone’s values—until you add in the value placed on having an agreed upon and supported solution, and not continually fighting about it.
(Although that implies something that hadn’t occurred to me before; those who want to fight always have that motivation to prevent a compromise.)
To fit into one of these four categories, cash transfers would either need to go to everybody (which would be a huge program, e.g. $10,000 per American would require collecting 20% of GDP in taxes and then redistributing it),
Much of that money is already collected in taxes, and much of the rest would be an accounting gimmick with withholding taxes. Money disappears from one account and appears in another.
It’s the net spending that matters, and how efficiently it is spent. There’s no particular theoretical difficulty in rejiggering tax rates and payment amounts.
To fit into one of these four categories, cash transfers would either need to go to everybody (which would be a huge program, e.g. $10,000 per American would require collecting 20% of GDP in taxes and then redistributing it),
Much of that money is already collected in taxes, and much of the rest would be an accounting gimmick with withholding taxes. Money disappears from one account and appears in another.
Around 70% of American safety net / welfare state spending goes to people who are elderly or disabled (including Social Security, Medicare, most of Medicaid, SSI, and chunks of various other programs). Keeping the amount of transfers to the elderly & disabled at their current level (either through the current programs or as cash), and giving everyone else in America $10,000 each, would require raising taxes by something like 10% of GDP (assuming that the rest of welfare spending was eliminated). I’d guess that plenty of people on the American left would support a proposal like that if it was on the table (although they’d probably prefer to keep some other components of the current welfare state as well, especially programs for children), but it is not currently a part of the mainstream political discussion and I do not think that Bill O’Reilly would respond favorably to it.
I think that one of the main reasons why the US has the complicated welfare state that it does, instead of simple cash transfers, is that unconditional cash transfers to the poor are unpopular among the general public. They make a lot of people feel like they are being taken advantage of. Instead of working like we are, these people are just mooching off of us. The government is taking our hard-earned money, which we deserve, and giving it to people who don’t deserve it. That feeling was one of the main motivations behind welfare reform in the 1990s (recall “welfare queens”). When the word “redistribution” does come up in American politics, it’s almost always as an accusation by the right against the left (like in response to Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth around” comments during the 2008 election).
If you look at the various safety net programs that the US has (alternate sources), they’re designed in a way that avoids that impression that they are just giving your money to the undeserving poor. The recipient seems deserving, because the program does some combination of the following:
help people who are especially needy, sympathetic, or helpless on their own, like children or the disabled (e.g., SSI, school lunches, CHIP). They’re the ones who really need our aid. Programs for the elderly (like Social Security) might count here too.
meet people’s basic human needs, rather than giving them money which they can spend on anything that they want (e.g., SNAP, housing assistance, Medicaid). Everyone ought to be fed; giving people food doesn’t feel like you’re being taken advantage of in the same way as giving money (and similarly with healthcare, housing, etc.). In some cases, like SNAP (food stamps), this can be pretty close to a pure cash benefit since money is fungible and pretty much everybody buys food. In other cases it involves a lot more meddling.
reward good behavior, giving money to poor people who are doing something to deserve it—especially those that are working or seeking work (e.g., EITC, TANF, job training). This category has grown the most over the past couple decades, with welfare reform (making welfare dependent on employment-seeking) and large increases to the earned income tax credit. EITC is pretty much what you’re looking for—a negative income tax—but it only applies to people who are working.
are shared benefits for everyone, not special benefits for the poor (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Alaska’s oil fund). The social insurance model fits this category. I paid into Medicare so I deserve my benefits. Anyone who gets hurt on the job and is unable to work will collect disability insurance. That’s our oil so we should share the profits. (Alaska’s program has the additional advantage of not needing tax money for funding.)
I think that all of the main safety net programs (listed on the sites linked above) fit pretty cleanly within one (or more) of these four categories, except maybe Pell Grants for college expenses (which is at least loosely related to each of them, but might be better thought of as a part of the publicly funded education system).
To fit into one of these four categories, cash transfers would either need to go to everybody (which would be a huge program, e.g. $10,000 per American would require collecting 20% of GDP in taxes and then redistributing it), or only go to the working poor (which is already done with the EITC), or only go to the particularly needy (which is already done for the disabled and the elderly, and wouldn’t really work for children). Unconditional cash transfers to generic poor people just don’t poll well, and leave politicians vulnerable to political attacks.
Changes at the margin could involve increasing the size of programs that are closest to pure cash transfers (like EITC), shrinking or eliminating programs that involve more meddling (like some kinds of housing assistance), or loosening the restrictions/conditions on specific programs so that there’s less hassle in running it (e.g. eligibility requirements for SNAP). Each individual change has an obvious partisan valence. Another option is to try to make the tax system more progressive (or oppose efforts to make it less progressive) - a simple way for the government to get more money into the hands of the poor people is to collect less tax money from them in the first place. That also has an obvious partisan valence.
I think that’s basically right. The unfortunate side is that lying about the nature of the programs makes the programs less effective. Rationalizations become implementations. A dishonest rationalization keeps people focused on the wrong things, and doing the wrong things.
I think there are two good arguments for a direct redistribution, one common, one not.
The common one is helping the poor. Yes, conservatives want to help the poor too.
The uncommon one is based on justice. Except for propertarian ideologues, I don’t think the proposition that everyone has an equal right to a share in natural resources is that controversial. It’s just that few talk about. As I related earlier, even a Bill OReilly can get on board with that. It’s a peculiarity that there is widespread support for the proposition with respect to “our” oil, whoever “we” might be, but few follow the implications, as Thomas Paine, Henry George, and others have.
There is a final political argument that “this is better than what we do now”. Not quite as satisfying to anyone, but it shouldn’t be dismissed thereby. Political compromise by definition doesn’t align exactly with everyone’s values—until you add in the value placed on having an agreed upon and supported solution, and not continually fighting about it.
(Although that implies something that hadn’t occurred to me before; those who want to fight always have that motivation to prevent a compromise.)
Much of that money is already collected in taxes, and much of the rest would be an accounting gimmick with withholding taxes. Money disappears from one account and appears in another.
It’s the net spending that matters, and how efficiently it is spent. There’s no particular theoretical difficulty in rejiggering tax rates and payment amounts.
Around 70% of American safety net / welfare state spending goes to people who are elderly or disabled (including Social Security, Medicare, most of Medicaid, SSI, and chunks of various other programs). Keeping the amount of transfers to the elderly & disabled at their current level (either through the current programs or as cash), and giving everyone else in America $10,000 each, would require raising taxes by something like 10% of GDP (assuming that the rest of welfare spending was eliminated). I’d guess that plenty of people on the American left would support a proposal like that if it was on the table (although they’d probably prefer to keep some other components of the current welfare state as well, especially programs for children), but it is not currently a part of the mainstream political discussion and I do not think that Bill O’Reilly would respond favorably to it.