I think that your assumption that people interpret “government program” based on how they’ve been taught to is largely correct, but I think there is one other aspect of this that is also somewhat disturbing to me. 

In my (albeit limited) experience, people who are using Medicaid, food stamps, TANF progarms, Head Start, or other programs geared towards helping those who need help, are often made to feel all too keenly that they are using government programs.  The process of applying can be humiliating, all of your business is dug into in a way that tax subsidies are certainly not.  I think most of us middle class folks file our taxes with very little fear of being audited, and if you are qualifying for serious tax breaks you have someone to take care of that messy business for you, while if you’re trying to apply for a housing grant or public assistance the rules can be incredibly convoluted depending on district, and you’re often made to feel like the default position is that you’re lying before you prove that, no, you actually do need help.  It’s very difficult to avoid the fact that you’re getting help from a government program.  In fact, I’m somewhat surprised the numbers for welfare, food stamps, and housing are as high as they are in that chart.

The chart definitely shows that we need to redefine in society what government programs actually mean so that people have a realistic view of where our tax money goes, and so that there is a recognition that we all get government help, and those who need it the most shouldn’t have such high barriers to getting it.

I suspect a large part of that is that people don’t “see” the government imprint on programs.  For example, the home mortgage deduction isn’t a check being sent to you from the government, it is a lower tax rate.  (And the GOP meme that “it is your money that the government is taking” when they talk about taxes would imply that this isn’t the government giving back, it is the government taking less.) Similarly, for student loans, you don’t get a check from the government to cover the interest, instead the government subsidizes it directly.  Even things like social security can be spun as getting your money back.

I know the number of programs where I’ve received some assistance from the government, but the number of direct subsidies is limited.

Def, aca, and I agree that the bureaucracies that handle this should have a uniform standard of service, and not present a different face to the poor and the middle class and the rich.  But I suspect that even if that were the case, you’d still see these disparities.  People are capable of ignoring the fact that their checks are coming from the Treasury!  Republican propaganda claiming the haves didn’t need a leg up has been that successful.  It’s even the third comment here. People are in deeeeeeep denial.

I think James @2 has it exactly correct. 
The perception is that you are just getting back the money you paid in yourself (and so getting your money back) for things like mortgage deductions or other tax items. (The earned income credit should have a much lower incidence of this though as you can actually “get back” more than you paid in - or at least you used to be able to.) 
Student loans are usually administered through a bank rather than directly through a government entity, masking that it is a government program.  This is clearly not the case with Pell grants though as those a a direct government program (though administered through a college). 
While it is true that people in need are made to feel shitty for no good reason when they receive benefits, I really think it is more the idea of getting back your own investment that makes these people not have to face that they are really taking part in a government program (though denial no doubt plays a part in their willful ignorance).

I am solidly middle class, now.  I was not always.  I know that I have benefited from 10 of the items on the list (directly as an adult or because my mother did), and still benefit from one of them.  I may have benefited from other items via my parents when I was a child that I am unaware of.

All of which makes the attack on using FSA’s to purchase reproductive health care all that more ridiculous.  Suddenly its not “my money being given back to me”, but “government money going to sluts”.  Is there a point when the messages coming from conservatives gets so contradictory that the base starts to actually notice (or care)?  I used to think so but not any more.

Also, working the the MIC, I can tell you that government military and security programs are very much NOT untouchable right now.

Spot on. When I became pregnant 3 yrs ago, I didn’t have insurance thru my job and we couldn’t really afford insurance with a deductible less than $5K. So, it turned out I qualified for a Medicaid program in my state for pregnant women and infants (there is a higher income threshold). I mentioned this to my supervisor at the time, a white, middle class, conservative woman and she said, “So, you are going to use my tax dollars? Haha, just kidding!” (She wasn’t kidding). I said, “I pay taxes too, so this is just a bit of that money coming back to me when I need it.”

She is one who would say she doesn’t receive money from the government even though she is very diligent about itemizing her taxes for deductions and always gets a receipt on charitable contributions so they can be deducted.

I think it’s obvious the lowest quartile (by wealth) of people in this country are simply not pulling their weight.  Not having any wealth to speak of is simply not an excuse for being worthless layabouts.

When I fly in my Gulfstream from my penthouse suite overlooking Central Park to my vacation home in Aspen, before flying over to my palatial estate in La Jolla, I want to be able to look down on the bottom tier of Americans and know in my heart they are doing all they can to keep me in my preferred lifestyle. 

Until then, I, and my fellow Galtian Superheroes, weep for the future of this great country…

Even more than this, I used to have fights in college with some “libertarian” classmates, who insisted that they shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they didn’t use anything from the government.

Aside from the fact that they still did things like drive on roads built and paid for by the government, and feel safe in their homes because of police and firefighters (again, employed by the government), we were attending a publicly funded STATE UNIVERSITY.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

That being said, even I probably wouldn’t immediately associate my home interest mortgage deduction with “use of government programs”, but once it’s pointed out my reaction is “oh of course!”, not willful blindness.

AnoNY2 (#2),

The very reason that half the people “don’t pay” income taxes is because of these welfare programs. The Earned Income Tax Credit, student loan interest deductions, child tax credits, deductions for children, home mortgage deductions, charitable deductions, and others put many people into the large group that doesn’t pay income taxes.

And even that isn’t entirely true, as many of those people get a big tax return after they overpaid during the year. Sometimes that’s due to a change in status, but usually it’s poor accounting. But most people don’t mind and love buying or paying off something big each Spring.

Such arguments as yours often neglect to say “income” taxes, to glibly ignore all those other taxes that are paid. Federal, state, and local taxes, plus the subsidies in higher prices that pay for the taxes on businesses. Plus, anyone with a cell phone, cable bill, internet service, gasoline-powered vehicle, or who uses one pays taxes on those things. And those who rent or own homes pay taxes as well.

I forgot the standard deduction on the income tax. It’s a tax break for being a person. Do the math: no one pays the actual rate. No one.

a related problem are the huge numbers of people who work for government-funded programs but somehow don’t think they’re being supported by the government. You see this a lot, for example, in beltway Virginia. Huge numbers of people earning large salaries working for the defense industry - many of whom are double- and even triple-dippers with multiple income streams from the govt - but all voting Republican because they don’t like giving “their” money to the unworthy.

Another example - I have a relative who works as a prison guard - an industry among the worst for corruption, cronyism and patronage. And yet he feels very superior to the welfare recipients.

There’s an interesting divide between public employees who work in sectors where they can actually create good (e.g., teachers, firefighters, people doing public and human service), who tend to be progressive; and those who work for sectors that can at best be considered necessary evils, who tend to be Republican.

The list is so much longer.

Drink water from a tap without having to boil it? Thank the government.
Survive an auto accident because you were wearing a seatbelt? Thank the government.
Live in a rural area and have electricity? Thank the government.
Use the Internet? Thank the government.

Court systems, highways, national parks, basically everything we take for granted in our comfy lives is only made possible by government programs, regulations and/or infrastructure.

But point that out to a libertarian and they start with the whole “the market would have provided yadda yadda.” Point out that didn’t really work with civil rights, and they turn into Rand Paul and suddenly I fear for my corneas.

Heh… this could be my mom’s family, except for the education part, because while they talk about getting College Degrees as a good thing, the fact is that most don’t want to step that far outside their comfort zones.

Grandfather (deceased): sharecropper with eighth-grade education, always GOP & loathed FDR, joined the Army rather late during WWII & met my city-girl (Philly) grandmother before shipping out.  Stayed in as a sergeant, raised five kids all over the place.  Retired to rural Mississippi in the sixties and didn’t find as much white-dude privilege as he expected, bringing his resentment & bigotry to the fore when he didn’t get a federal military-base job.

Grandmother: Democrat until she got angry at Vietnam-era hippies; went to nursing school through spousal benefits, worked at a VA hospital until she was injured at work and retired on disability (higher $$ than ordinary retirement).

Aunt: married military both times, had a manufacturing job in the early seventies but there was some injury, went to college & sent her two oldest kids on second (disabled) husband’s GI benefits, was divorcing him when he dropped dead and has gotten widows’ benefits ever since.  Even with the College Degree, has only worked part-time in shops & as an occasional substitute teacher in the 25 years since graduation.  Believes strongly in laissez-faire capitalism without understanding the idea or actively participating in it.

Uncle #1: dropped out of HS & joined Army during Vietnam, but was lucky enough to be sent to Germany instead (he also routinely wins at casinos- damnedest thing).  Was in National Guard for years while his wife had a state job.  Several failed businesses.  Less reflexively wingnutty than others, but still solidly GOP.

Uncle #2: soft-hearted personally, self-righteous idiot drowning in cheap symbolism politically.  Joined Marines right out of HS & was disillusioned when they made him a cook.  Joined Navy later when in desperate straits, which killed his first marriage.  Kids benefitted from Head Start, but not four-year-degree-inclined.  Only stable jobs ever have been military and military-base contracting.  Occasionally (and un-ironically) complains about the use of his tax dollars when a) he doesn’t make or pay that much, and b) others’ tax dollars employ him.

Fun crowd, anyway.  My mom died a decade ago so I’m not especially obligated to spend time with them, which has been a huge relief, except Facebook has been a sort of filial thorn in my side.  They honestly don’t see the dissonance, though.

anoNY2 #2,

According to the (outlandishly conservative) National Taxpayers Union, the top 1% pay about 38% of all income taxes.

That’s not too far off of the roughly 35% of all income they earn (source).

It’s actually disturbingly close, given that we’re supposed to have a progressive system of taxation.

Helen, the Child Tax Credit was devised to return the SS/Medicare tax that a working parent pays to the government, and along with expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, means that working families get a lot more back than they had withheld in income tax and the SS/Medicare from their paychecks.

But doesn’t the top 10% pay something like 50% of the total income taxes?

Sometimes being in the top 10% means paying nothing in taxes, like the McCourts of Dodger infamy:

Legal papers filed in connection with the high-profile divorce here of Jamie and Frank McCourt, whose portfolio includes the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, show that the couple took in $108 million from 2004 to 2009 and didn’t pay a penny in income tax, according a Los Angeles Times report.

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/02/24/divorce-filing-reveals-how-the-rich-stay-rich/

Sam-I had that same argument with the libertarians at my state funded university—at least two of whom were there because of my states then-generous scholarship fund—as well.  The lack of self-awareness was mind-boggling.

But doesn’t the top 10% pay something like 50% of the total income taxes?  Doesn’t sound like they are getting it right back in credits, etc.
Comment #3: anoNY2 on 07/19 at 09:36 AM

Are you really unable to figure that out or are you saying that to confuse the innumerate?  In what bizarro world would their being only ten percent of the population be a reason they should pay only ten percent of the taxes?  False equivalency.

No, if they’re the top 10% then they make more than the rest so of course they pay more per person.  The question is, how much more do they make?  Well surprise surprise,

“The analysis by the two professors showed that the top 10 percent of Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

So they’re paying about the same percentage per income dollar.  If they make 50 percent of the income, it would make sense that they would pay 50 percent of the total income taxes.  Since your numbers are not precise and mine might not match by year, I’d say it sounds fair.

But wait there’s more!

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html has some interesting graphs including the share of income versus tax paid.  It’s divided by quintiles so I can’t quote you what the top ten percent are getting/paying, but the top 20 percent actually pay *less* than their share if you compare income versus tax paid.

But that’s not all!

Since there’s such a thing as a standard deduction*, people who have more income have more taxable income than someone who’s lower-income, therefore you’d expect them to pay more per income dollar, even before progressive taxation rates are applied.

Hence if they are being taxed at the same rate per income dollar, they’re actually getting taxed less per taxable dollar, largely thanks to these deductions and credits they can take that lower-income people can’t.  They’re getting credits on mortgage interest.  Retirement funds.  Student loans.  Some of those are out of reach for poorer people.  The activities of people with higher incomes and more importantly greater wealth are pretty generous.

That’s even before you count the better service they get in terms of police, parks, roads, and other perks of living in a nice neighborhood.

*

The standard deduction is a fixed dollar amount that reduces the income you’re taxed on. Your standard deduction varies according to your filing status. In 2010, the standard deduction is:

  $5,700 if you’re filing as single or married filing separately
  $11,400 if married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er)
  $8,400 if you qualify to file as head of household

http://www.hrblock.com/free-tax-tips-calculators/deductions-credits/overlooked-deductions.html

According to the (outlandishly conservative) National Taxpayers Union, the top 1% pay about 38% of all income taxes.

That’s not too far off of the roughly 35% of all income they earn (source).

Yes, the right & libertarians (like there’s a real difference) love to pretend that we tax people instead of income as it’s allocated—it suits their sense of grievance to insist that taxation is more about individuals than about the money individuals have.  It’s a neat little rhetorical trick.

“The lack of self-awareness was mind-boggling.”

...but don’t you see?  They’re special.  They will take that education and give back much more to the society that sponsored them.  They’re worth every penny.

“Those People”, on the other hand, will do nothing but take, take, take until their dying day, expecting society to support them the whole time, generation after generation, screwing like rabbits, leaving litters of children to be raised by their more responsible grand-parents, joining gangs and looting society — until all the rich people in America get so angry they chuck it all up and go Galt on us, leaving us to drown among the moochers and leeches, while they settle down to quiet, productive lives as farmers in Indonesia, or something.

(I can see it now:  Some ex-Wall-Streeter trying to convince people at the village market they should pay $1000 for their 50lb bag of rice, because it’s an investment that will pay off immense profits… if they can sucker someone else into buying it from them for $1500.  “Rice is an investment that will never decrease in value!  People have to eat!” 

People balk because they can buy a 50lb bag of rice for $5 from somebody else. 

Then some Galtian genius invents “Collateralized Rice Obligations” for speculation purposes and then we’re off to the races again…)

But doesn’t the top 10% pay something like 50% of the total income taxes?  Doesn’t sound like they are getting it right back in credits, etc.

Either you are an idiot or you assume that we are all idiots and are going to eat up your bullshit. Either way, it doesn’t belong here, you talking-points-nattering dumbass.

it suits their sense of grievance to insist that taxation is more about individuals than about the money individuals have.

For the cleverer ones, that’s true. Many of them just don’t know the difference nor any kind of math that might help them figure it out.

and the “top 10% pay umpity more percentage” ignores the fact that the system was designed to try to balance the sacrifice, that the same dollar paid by the wealthy isn’t the same as the dollar paid by those less well off.  It’s the difference between one family not taking that extra week of vacation in Italy this year and the other family not being able to pay their mortgage and losing their home..

and the “top 10% pay umpity more percentage” ignores the fact that the system was designed to try to balance the sacrifice, that the same dollar paid by the wealthy isn’t the same as the dollar paid by those less well off.  It’s the difference between one family not taking that extra week of vacation in Italy this year and the other family not being able to pay their mortgage and losing their home..
Comment #25: Woodrowfan on 07/19 at 12:20 PM

But they don’t really pay more income tax per income dollar than average.  In fact, they pay less.  So they’re *not* sacrificing more.

DAGCM @ 18:
Yes, I am aware of the history.  Was that an assumption I didn’t know what I was talking about, an explaination to others as to how that might happen, an expantion or were you saying it is still posible?  It’s hard to tell the way you write.
I haven’t looked into it directly since the last time I got back more than I paid in, about 2 decades ago, but a friend of mine told me that was the case for her around 8-10 years ago.

That reminds me, didn’t actor Craig Nelson say a few years ago something like “I was on food stamps. Nobody helped me.” when talking about a time in his life when he was poor.  Dude, the fact that tax dollars paid for those food stamps meant that people did help you.

I’ve been fairly lucky in life, I think. The only programs I can recall using from the list at the top of the post are the EITC, plenty of governmental grants and scholarships to get through college, and scads of unemployment benefits.

I do keep in mind that almost everything else around me—from the breathable quality of the air and the drinkability of my tap water, to the roads, the Internet, police, fire, emergency services, pleasant parks, plentiful food, gasoline, etc., etc., ad infinitum—came to me through the government. I’m extremely pleased to pay my taxes every year, because I get so much back from such a small investment.

The limbaugh-beck-fox meme “bottom 50% pay no taxes” meme is, like much else of what they push, a lie.

I’ve read that the bottom 50% pay 22% of their (small) incomes in taxes (between Federal, state, sales, etc.), the wealthy, on average, pay only 16% of their wealth.

Guess who has the spare cash for that second yacht?

anoNY @ 27
Yes, yes it is measly when you realize that most of government program dollars do not go to the poor, they go to the middle through upper classes through tax credits, services, subsidies and a functioning economic system (if not straight out jobs that pay them enough to be rich). 
God, you’re a moron.  Or a liar.  Take your pick.

”...the system was designed to try to balance the sacrifice, that the same dollar paid by the wealthy isn’t the same as the dollar paid by those less well off.”

Typical liberal!  Trying to claim that a poor person’s dollar is worth more than a rich person’s dollar, simply because the poor person has so many fewer of them.  That is just plain bigotry against the rich.

Of course, a poor man’s dollar and a rich man’s dollar will by the same liter of soda at AM/PM.  So in that way they’re the same.  But what this doesn’t take into account is that the rich man wouldn’t/couldn’t buy and consume the same ordinary soda.  His delicate constitution requires/demands that he buy a limited production boutique soda, made with green tea and ginseng and Scandinavian elderberries and just a touch of pure cane sugar from Peru, which means it costs five-to-ten times as much as ordinary soda.  And it must be specially ordered at an elite full-service market in West Hollywood.  Plus there’s the cost of fueling the limousine, the salary of the driver, and the lost productivity from even thinking about these distractions, rather than continuing his laser-like focus on creating value for his stockholders by outsourcing the last three factories in the US to China.

If anything, the rich man’s dollar is worth far more than any poor man’s dollar, when you weigh all the costs…

@ anoNY2

I am perfectly happy to subsidize the poor and the tenuous middle class, who really need the help just to tread water. I am a liberal and not a fucking glibertarian piece of hateful, ignorant, over-privileged shit. I am angry as fuck that I instead have to subsidize the wealthy so that they can buy a(nother) luxury yacht or a(nother) Ferrari whilst being given carte blanche to rape the environment and cement the massive reverse-Robin Hood redistribution of wealth.

Fucky you, anoNY2. Stop being such a disingenuous asswipe. We have your number, dipshit. We do not now, nor have we ever needed, your idiotic “arguments.”

I am grateful each and every day for clean air, clean water, construction standards, auto/appliance safety standards, food safety standards, medical/health standards, subsidized education, et cetera, ad nauseum. When I was underemployed and lacked health insurance, the great State of California allowed me, via its funding of Planned Parenthood, to get an IUD, which has allowed me to avoid abortion (because I absolutely fucking refuse to create a child in this fucked up, overpopulated, overrun by hateful fucking religion-addled asswipe-ridden world).

I recently became unemployed and I filed for Unemployment as soon as I was eligible.  I occasionally keep in touch with a former coworker who is hardcore conservative and used to whine constantly about public school teachers taking too much money.  I’m not ashamed to accept Unemployment, but I figured he would criticize it when the topic came up.  To my surprise, he was all for it.  And he did actually say that it’s fine because I paid into it, even though I only worked for a few years before being laid off and I have certainly taken more than I paid.  But he’s in almost the same position as I am and it could have just as easily been him instead of me, so I think he has to justify it to himself for the time when he will be let go too.

@Oldfeminist

“In what bizarro world would their being only ten percent of the population be a reason they should pay only ten percent of the taxes?  False equivalency.”

That is not what I said.  I was pointing out that Amanda’s statement that the rich don’t subsidize the poor through taxes is complete bullshit.  Just because the level of wealth transfer isn’t to her liking doesn’t mean it is “measly.”
Comment #27: anoNY2 on 07/19 at 12:37 PM

So which is it?

People who make up 10 percent of the population should pay 10 percent of the taxes.

or

People who have 50 percent of the income should pay 50 percent of the taxes.

People pay taxes proportionate to their income.  How is this unfair?

No, oldfeminist, people should pay taxes proportionate to their income, and don’t, which is unfair.  I know you mean that they should pay proportionally though and that that would be fair.
Personally, I’d like it to be more unfair, in the opposite direction; because as others here have said, the services I get for my taxes are a bargain.  Those who have more should pay at least an equal percentage, not less, if only because they had/have more support from the existing structure (usually).

@9 Livi: your supervisior is a rotten person. You can’t win with them. I think right wingers will only be satisfied if you gave birth in the gutter and had to beg for food, you know instead ofusing their precious tax dollars for Medicare and food stamps for women <s> sluts who can’t keep their legs shut</s> who need it.

When you use the term “government program” this broadly, then even in a minimal libertarian state that only enforces property rights, anyone who owns property - i.e. who enjoys the benefits of this enforcement - is “using a government program.” The term is just not very meaningful.

I think it’s still reasonable to distinguish this kind of use from someone who is a net drag on the economy by being a net recipient of resources, e.g. someone who can’t work receiving subsidies for the poor and the disabled. But that’s too subtle, and often too difficult to figure out which side of the line you’re on, to satisfy people who want to claim that they are pulling their own weight, so they resort to exaggerations such as “never used a government program.”

This argument cuts both ways. On one hand, it is not fair to call someone who wants to reduce the scope of government, but benefits from government programs, a hypocrite for that reason. On the other hand, it means that “taxation is theft” arguments are nonsense, at least if you want to preserve the moral valence of the term “theft.”

No, oldfeminist, people should pay taxes proportionate to their income, and don’t, which is unfair.

Why?

I mean, it’s fairly simple - the utility of $100 to someone who makes $30,000 a year is far more than the utility of $1,000 to someone who makes $300,000.  It causes far more pain to tax 10 of those lesser paid people than one of those rich.

“Proportionate taxes are only fair” is one of those mantras which simply doesn’t make sense when examined closely.

The only way I’ve had success with hardcore right-wingers is to accuse them of getting off sexually on the suffering of the poor.  I usually start with that anecdote about the kid getting run over in Les Miserables, then ask them if they’re excited yet.

It’s pretty much the truth, and it’s enough to shock them into questioning it.

@BJSurviver #34: what a perfect comment. And I will add: another way we are robbed: every year it’s cheaper for me to take the standard deduction. What sucks is I am losing out on over $3,000 worth of tax credits, a combination of my mortgage interest and the various charities I donate too.
I should be able to take both the standard and my other deductions. It really pisses me off. I pay over 25% of my income goes to taxes, some of which goes to the Teatards on S.S and Medicare.

On one hand, it is not fair to call someone who wants to reduce the scope of government, but benefits from government programs,

Sure it is. Their lifestyle is enabled by these “government programs” that enable them to live as well as they do. Doctors benefit from Medicare as much as patients do, since without Medicare, those patients would be dead, and the doctors would have no one to treat.

The tax benefit from the mortgage deduction to the individual is much greater than the tax cut on marginal rates that taxpayers would benefit from if the deduction were eliminated and marginal rates cut to even the end of the deduction out.

It is very humbling to look at this list and realize how many government programs I have benefited from.  And while I have always known that each program was provided by the government, I too might have answered that I wasn’t in a government program just from having the privilege of not having to think about those things too hard.  Pell grants, subsidized loans, home mortgage interest deduction and now unemployment insurance…  And my conservative family agrees that I am entitled to all of these things because I have paid in, but the real reason is that we are not “those people” on welfare or other more directly visible government programs.

There are so many ways in which the rich are subsidized by everyone else and don’t pay their fair share of taxes.  For example, the private university I attended sits on some very prime lakefront real estate and yet pays absolutely no property taxes to the city.  The idea is that as a university it is non-profit and can’t be strapped with taxes, yet it has a 6 billion dollar endowment and all its most recent buildings have been funded by large corporations.  As a student, I thought it a bit unfair that the university paid nothing to the city, but now that I am a resident of the city and see how much the city actually does put into the university, I think it is grossly unfair.  Primarily children of the wealthy are benefiting from a city and environment that is subsidized by middle class taxpayers and homeowners.

Yup.

It’s definitely because “used government programs” and “relied on government” have become ginormous screeching dog whistles for black black blackity black.

And “being against government handouts” is basically code for desperately wanting to make sure that no white money is ever used to go to any black people for any reason in an extension of segregation.

So of course they are “not reliant on the government” because they are not black. This also means they aren’t moochers.

Many of these people are shocked and affronted that all their ideological battling against “entitlement programs” and “welfare” is somehow causing a situation wherein their hard-deserved benefits are starting to flicker or disappear.

Because the white benefit programs weren’t supposed to be connected to the blackity black black benefit programs.

Of course their response to this is to blame the black man in charge of everything or imagined fellow poor people who are black who must be “stealing all the benefit programs” with their “cheating lazy ways”.

Tyro,

A program may bad on net for you or your values, but if you’re paying the costs anyway, there’s no point in turning down the benefits.

Let’s say I join a cooking circle with some neighbors; we take turns making dinner, so we get home-cooked meals for home-cooked prices, at a fraction of the cost in time. So we all are better off than we were before. Then I start working more hours, and the time and cost savings are less compelling relative to going out for food than they were before, so I want to opt out of the circle. But I committed through the end of the year, so I keep going, cooking out of obligation (the cost), and eating the food they cook (the benefit).

Would you say that I am a hypocrite in this case? I claim that I am no longer receiving a *net* benefit by participating, and wish that I could stop now. But I am still receiving a *gross* benefit each time I participate, though it is smaller than the cost.

(Please bear in mind that I am not claiming that any particular goverment program is bad, only that it’s receiving a benefit need not imply endorsing the program. Nor am I claiming that *no one* who benefits from government programs but wants to shrink government is a hypocrite. Just that such behavior is not a *sufficient* condition to establish hypocrisy.)

I’m all ears to hear a conservative argue that we should get rid of the home mortgage deduction,  but hardly any of them will, in part because the save much more in taxes on the deduction that they would save by getting rid of the deduction and cutting their income tax rates. Yes these same conservative homeowners will claim that they “don’t benefit” from a government program.

Linz,

I’m with you on wealthy universities; I don’t see the public good in making the wealthiest universities tax-free. If you want to subsidize education, just pay people to go to school (or increase funding to state schools). Would you extend that to other non-profits like religious institutions?

I am not sure I can agree that on net “the rich are subsidized by everyone else.” Society and government produce massive gains from trade, so just about everyone is much better off than they would be in the state of nature, and it’s not clear to me that there is an objectively fair distribution of the gains. (Anything that makes someone worse off than before would be an obvious problem.) For example, a mediocre CEO provides a *tremendous* amount of marginal value relative to a really terrible one. But how much of that is attributable to the CEO, how much to other employees/investors/technology/customers, and how much to the society and government that make it all possible? Each one of those is a “but for” that, were it removed, would eliminate most of the value. Different people have different *preferences* about how these gains are distributed, and any deviation from your preferences will of course feel unfair. Distribution also affects future production through incentives and efficient capital allocation, and the most efficient distribution is unlikely to match what you think is fair.

Of course some particular rich people are clearly subsidized (e.g. those who produce subsidized products that would not be valued in any sane system), and that’s a problem.

Tyro, I agree that in the particular case of the mortgage interest deduction there is a lot of hypocrisy on the part of those who decry subsidies that facilitate population density and benefit city-dwellers, while pretending not to enjoy a subsidy for owning a big house. I expect that we will agree on a lot of other particular cases.

What about attending churches that don’t pay property taxes?

Sixtieslibber, while I personally think religious institutions should not be exempt from taxes (& that a tax exemption ought to be considered a first amendment violation), it’s much easier to establish that someone is receiving a gross subsidy than that they are receiving a net subsidy.

If you break my leg and then give me a ride to the hospital, you’ve done me a gross benefit but a net harm, and despite receiving the benefit I’d still rather you didn’t break my leg in the first place.

On the other hand, if you yank me out of the path of an oncoming bus, but in the process dislocate my arm, then despite the gross harm you did, I’ve received a net benefit and would thank you for saving my life.

Someone who attends a tax-exempt church also pays income, sales, and property taxes, receives other government benefits, etc., which may be more or less than average. It’s hard to calculate net benefits, and if you just use gross benefits it looks like *everyone* is a freeloader.

And of course they may engage in voluntary service to help people who would otherwise cost the government money, which is something even more difficult to count.

My uncle was too young to serve in WWII, but was in the occupation forces in Japan afterwards.  He then went to college on the GI bill and was a public school teacher until he retired.  To be best of my knowledge he never spent a day of his adult life not being supported by the government in some way or other.  He got his house with a VA loan, sent his son to a state college and is living on his state pension, social security (and some private investments, to be fair).  His wife worked in the private sector for a few years, then got a staff job in the same school system my uncle worked in so they could have the same schedule (i.e. summers off).  He and his wife are on Medicaid and (I think) get some medical care through the VA.  His mother, my grandmother, lived the last 30 years or so of her life in Title 9 housing and would not have survived without Medicaid.  There is much that I admire about them.  They worked hard at their jobs and were good at them; my uncle was a very popular teacher.  The contributed to their community and still do, and were excellent parents.  They have always lived modestly and within their means, but their means would have been WAY less had it not been for government programs.  You should hear them railing against welfare and socialism, though.

My dad was a similar case.  He was in the military for a few years in the 50s, but otherwise didn’t hold government jobs.  As far as I know none of the health problems he had in later life was in any way service related, but for the last 15 years—at least—of his life, he got a substantial part of his medical care through the VA.  I think he might have bought our first house through the VA, but am not actually certain.  He attended a state university, as did I and his stepkids.  When he retired and hit the appropriate age, of course he used Medicaid.  He had a private pension and investments, but also collected social security.  While he didn’t live completely off government programs like my uncle, his life was made much easier by social programs and government investment.  Like my aunt and uncle, he worked hard, lived modestly, contributed a great deal to his community (after retirement doing lots of volunteer work for an excellent children’s charity, which—naturally—relied on government funding for the bulk of its income), was a great father and stepfather…lots to admire about him and the way he lived his life.

But, like my aunt and uncle, he railed constantly against creeping socialism, welfare and such, never once acknowledging, at least in my presence, how much he had benefited from government programs.

These are/were smart, college educated, thoughtful, successful, well-read people who follow current events (and not just Fox News).  The lack of self awareness on their part is all the more frightening because of that.

#9 pitbullgirl, that’s partially what I was going to say. Let’s face it, what tea baggers really want is for poor women to have to watch their children die from malnutrition or lack of health care because that’s what they get for being dirty sluts. Dead children will decrease the “surplus population” of moochers living off of their great Galtian wealth.

Libertarians are another group who don’t email or pick fights with me so I don’t have the experiences that some on this blog have. Will one of you please ask your libertarian friends to explain their Galt plans? Because if they cannot draw up blueprints (with no training in this area or use of the internet) and build some great architectural marvel with their bare hands (no borrowing money from friends or picking up immigrants in front of Home Depot to do the grunt work) then they aren’t really going Galt. Isn’t the whole point that they don’t need anything from any of us and they can achieve great things all on their own? Call their bluff and make them do it.

A lot of conservatives who rail against socialism are small business owners. I’ve already pointed out the incongruity of doctors who, without Medicare, would not have living patients to treat. But you have a lot of small business owners who make their living in poor neighborhoods where the people spend their welfare checks *at those businesses* and landlords who depend on rent *from people with section 8 vouchers*. the recipients of those dollars spent by the poor benefit from those very government programs because part of the point of those programs is to sustain those communities and keep businesses alive providing amenities, and keeping rental housing occupied.

56 might be right, but maybe without those subsidies, those small business owners would have gone into a different business with different customers who would have hung onto money that we currently tax away from them.

Unless you have access to the counterfactual it is extremely difficult to figure out whether someone is a net beneficiary, and your uncertainty should be very high.

Benquo, even with the uncertainties of a counterfactual, we can be pretty sure that the rental units would have been empty or rented to a less reliable tenant and that the business would have had to open up shop in a more prosperous neighborhood whose customer base had a more reliable source of income. Otherwise, there would be no need for a government program at all.

Or the possibility that the gains would have been captured by already-incumbent business in those prosperous neighborhoods rather than the less prosperous one’s who had no place else to go but those poor neighborhoods to begin with. If the government programs are so bad for the economy, why is it that they seem to succeed so well with them?

Now you’re just engaging in sophistry, Benquo.

Benquo, I think that universities and religious institutions should have the same progressive taxation as individuals.  I do think that some are so small or legitimately non-profit that high property taxes would be an undue burden, but a blanket exemption for all religious institutions I agree is a violation of the first amendment.

Helen, you asked whether the Earned Income Tax Credit is money paid back that the recipients paid out earlier, and the answer is no.

OTOH, the Child Tax Credit was designed to let working families who make at least 3K a year in earned income get back the money that was withheld for SS/Medicare from their paychecks over the course of the year.

Because the rules aren’t the same for either credit, it’s possible to qualify for either one or both, depending on the relationship of the taxpayer to the dependent.

Now, if BOTH the EITC and the CTC are claimed on a return, then, yes the taxpayer(s) are getting back more money then they put into the system.

If only the CTC, then they are only getting back their SS/Medicare withholding, and depending on their income level, perhaps some or all of any ‘voluntary’ federal withholding for the income tax(box 2 on the W-2) over the year.

Anyhoo, taxes are like sex, only a few people really know a lot about the subject, and most people believe some disordered version of the truth

Some of the numbers in the graph are due to semantics.  I looked at the links a little but couldn’t find whether the phrase “government social program” was defined for the poll responders.  I don’t blame ordinary Joes and Josephines for not recognizing tax deductions and credits as “social programs”.  Social security benefits have for so long been characterized as simple repayments of what you pay in that a lot of people see it as just getting their own money back.  Even if you changed the description to “government benefits paid for by taxes” you wouldn’t pick up a lot of recognition of deductions as part of it.  You might get some recognition of roads and police protection.  Not recognizing Medicare as a government social program while receiving its benefits is strange, though.

Cerberus @46 exhausts what there actually is to be said on this subject.  It really is as simple as that.

I’ve nearly always been upper-middle - at least by family - and it’s only the minority on that list I haven’t partaken of.

Home Mortgage Interest Deduction:  This year, first time!  My mom has taken it many times while I was her dependent.
Student Loans:  Duh, of course.
Dependent Tax Credit:  Nearly everyone’s parent has taken this.  It’s not much, but it isn’t an amount to be sneezed at.  I now qualify for the spouse deduction at the state level, even, though the Feds don’t recognize our relationship yet.
Earned Income Tax Credit:  Ten years ago, before my spouse and I merged incomes.
Social Security:  Survivor benefits from my Father.  Also, this has taken care of my grandparents!
Pell Grants:  Yep, got one of those, too.
Unemployment:  Who hasn’t been employed, and then not?
Veterans Benefits:  Well, my father qualified for this.
GI Bill:  Father, again.
Medicare:  This took care of only two of my grandparents, though the others had other insurance.  Like I said, upper-middle.
Head Start:  This probably paid for some of the pre-schooling I had; I’d been in Montessori since I was three, and daycare otherwise, so some of it probably was covered.  Maybe not.
Disability:  This cared for one grandfather
Welfare:  I think this helped after my father died and before my mother could get a better job and or survivor benefits.  It was a tough time, but my mom was very good at getting better paying jobs.  She also got a job working for the state as a social worker, so she knew her way around a form.
Food Stamps:  This fed me the year my dad kicked me out of the house and I lost my computer and job.  I still worked, but there was no way for my minimum wage job to pay for housing and food.

And that’s just counting close family.  It doesn’t count my friends, acquaintances, teachers or others in the community I’ve been close to.  These things help weave the country together… And it’s easy to forget about some of them, because maybe they’re not so big in the scheme of things.  But the top two tax credits account for 11% of our net income today!  And we’re in the top 10% of incomes in the country.

What about the roads to their suburban or ex-urban houses?  Or the freeway to their job?  I bet they’d be surprised to know how much those things cost, and how little of the cost is covered by their property and car taxes and fees.

I would be okay with getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction.  It’s not like I got any portion of my rent back in taxes each year… And I totally don’t pay more on my mortgage than my rent was.

My uncle was too young to serve in WWII, but was in the occupation forces in Japan afterwards.  He then went to college on the GI bill and was a public school teacher until he retired.  To be best of my knowledge he never spent a day of his adult life not being supported by the government in some way or other.

...and that uncle was John McCain.

Look on the bright side - if the debt ceiling winds up unraised, they may getthe chance to recognise how much they owe to the government.

I still believe that if it happnes, Obama, as the person responsible for executing Congress’s will, should start defunding services on a state by state basis, with the reddest states going first.

I still believe that if it happnes, Obama, as the person responsible for executing Congress’s will, should start defunding services on a state by state basis, with the reddest states going first.

Well, he should defund states in order of how much of a net drain on the federal wallet they are… which is the exact same thing as starting with the reddest states, funny enough.

Look on the bright side - if the debt ceiling winds up unraised, they may getthe chance to recognise how much they owe to the government.

Reminds me of how, a few years ago, MARTA (Atlanta’s public transit system) was threatening to shut down for a day so that people could see how much the city relied on it, and that way even the rich-ass mofos who think MARTA doesn’t benefit them could see that they’re not getting their lattes at Starbucks if the baristas can’t get to work.

I would have been all for that, except that a lot of the wage workers who directly rely on MARTA probably would have gotten fired by employers who are all, “Well, that’s not our problem, it’s your responsibility to get yourself to work everyday even when that’s literally impossible blah blah blah.”

Tyro, sorry it’s taking us so many rounds to establish where we actually disagree. Either I’m missing something about your point or you’re missing something about mine.

Obviously the poor people who receive the checks are likely net beneficiaries. I don’t disagree with you there. I was specifically addressing the question of whether the small business owners benefit.

I don’t see how it makes sense to assume that small business owners would be running the same businesses in the absence of the implicit subsidy. Were you assuming this (and if so, why?), or were you making some other point that I missed?

I don’t have a strong opinion as to whether these subsidies make society better off on net (though I suspect, weakly, that they do). If that’s where you think we disagree, I won’t have much to add to the conversation, because I have not studied the issue.

Calling my comment sophistry does not help me understand what errors I made. I am trying to stay open to new evidence, and it would be more helpful to me if you would point out specific errors instead of calling me names.

Libertarians are upset that children’s public playgrounds have been made safer. They blame lawyers and the tort-suit mentality. Children should be free to fall from ten-foot monkey bars, or to jump off cliffs into quarry ponds, because what hurts you (if it doesn’t kill you) makes you stronger. The comments are quite illuminating.

It might be possible to make emotional inks from this essentially libertarian sentiment to the tenets of the Tea Party

(warning: John Tierney article)

Crissa #63: For medicare, even if your grandparents had private insurance, some of their bills were almost certainly paid for by medicare. Depending on the kind of private insurance and other factors (there’s a brochure) medicare will either pay first and leave some amount to be covered by the patient or their other insurance, or the insurance will pay first, leaving the balance to be paid by medicare. (I remember this from when my father got sick—he had a well-compensated job with excellent health benefits, but he was 71, so medicare still stepped in to pay.)

Didn’t mean to be off topic: the mentality behind the condemnation of safer public playgrounds may have the same root as the mentality favoring the elimination of publicly funded economic safety nets. Struggle and suffering are good. The nanny state makes people soft.

Sam-I had that same argument with the libertarians at my state funded university—at least two of whom were there because of my states then-generous scholarship fund—as well.  The lack of self-awareness was mind-boggling.

State University! Lucky you. I had it in high school economics. When a girl asked what the government spent all those taxes on our public employee teacher just shrugged…

paul:  I know my mother was complaining about that; she would rather the medicare pay for someone who can’t pay than herself, who can.

Like MAL, I don’t think the only or always the most likely interpretation is that people are asked the question “are you using a government program?” and answering the question “are you the sort of person who uses a government program?” Many of them may instead be answering the question “are you getting a check from a program in an amount not based on what you’ve paid into it?”

Because four of the top five—four of the ones over 50%—are not in the form of checks. And many of the rest, especially near the top, can easily come across as “getting back the money I paid into it,” even if this is factually wrong; student loans, similarly, are loans. So people don’t think those will be affected by government cuts, because, respectively, they consider the elimination of tax credits and deductions as a tax increase rather than a spending cut (as suggested in the post, and in comment #2 from James), or they see the government’s role as purely administrative. If Social Security and Medicare are the government taking my money when I’m young and healthy and giving it back to me when I’m old and withered, they aren’t, y’know, spending spending, and so shouldn’t be affected by spending cuts. The costs associated with administering those programs, under this theory, are negligible, and can easily be borne once the distribution to people of the government’s money, rather than their own, is reduced or ended.

(The other category is veterans’ benefits and G.I bill, and there’s a somewhat justified sense of earning those, and the people calling for spending cuts, I think, tacitly or explicitly exempt them.)

Also what acallidryas said in #1.
<hr>
sam, 11:

That being said, even I probably wouldn’t immediately associate my home interest mortgage deduction with “use of government programs”, but once it’s pointed out my reaction is “oh of course!”, not willful blindness.

Even the liberal Hershele Ostropoler has a reaction better described as “well … I guess” than “oh, of course!”

Banquo @69

Calling my comment sophistry does not help me understand what errors I made.

Well, I’d say comments or your whole argument, myself, going right back to the foundation of “net benefits”:

I think it’s still reasonable to distinguish this kind of use from someone who is a net drag on the economy by being a net recipient of resources, e.g. someone who can’t work receiving subsidies for the poor and the disabled. But that’s too subtle, and often too difficult to figure out which side of the line you’re on, to satisfy people who want to claim that they are pulling their own weight, so they resort to exaggerations such as “never used a government program.”

You’re arguing that it’s reasonable to make a distinction between someone who contributes more than they use, and someone who uses more than they contribute.  The rest of your comments boil down to arguing that it’s virtually impossible to determine if someone’s a net contributor or a net drain.  LOL on just that part alone.  But there’s more.

It comes down to people’s self assessment.  If they feel they’re net contributors, well then, they’re not hypocrites when they think they’re not recipients of gov’t programs.  But of course anyone who doesn’t recognize that they’re receiving gov’t benefits is going to think they’re a net contributor.  I wonder which logical fallacy this is, begging the question maybe.

So I’m guessing that you think there’s some people that should just *know* they’re a net drain, where it’s obvious or something, like those on welfare.  But let me give you an example where that would be wrong: mothers on welfare.  The contribution they’re making in raising the next generation far outweighs the amount they receive from society for their labour.

PiaToR @41 -
I was correcting oldfemist’s “people pay” to “people should pay” and then disagreeing with it.  Read both comments before correcting or commenting further, please.  You were agreeing with me, not disagreeing, and disagreeing with oldfeminist’s statement (though not, I think, her intent).

DAGCM -um, no I didn’t ask about that nor even suggest it was - note the “” around get back.  Thanks for the specific breakdown though.

76:

Your guess in the last paragraph was wrong, but thank you for at least offering a guess as to what my argument is. In fact, people like welfare mothers are a good example of what I had in mind when I was pointing out how difficult it is to figure out whether someone is receiving a net subsidy, since not all the good people do is denominated in dollars. (They don’t get paid much for it, but the human being they create would generally much rather have been born than not.)

The rest of your comment also seems as if it’s arguing against a point of view that I don’t actually hold or endorse.

The rest of your comment also seems as if it’s arguing against a point of view that I don’t actually hold or endorse.

And yet here it is again:

. . . when I was pointing out how difficult it is to figure out whether someone is receiving a net subsidy . . .

Oh, and I tried to keep my comments brief, since there’s so many entertaining things in your posts, but I can’t resist the hilarity of you mentioning “evidence” in 69, when there’s not a shred of evidence to back up any of your outlandish theories.  This one’s a gem:

For example, a mediocre CEO provides a *tremendous* amount of marginal value relative to a really terrible one.

Please describe at least one of these “outlandish theories.” What do you think I’m saying?

80: Are you saying it’s easy?

81: Would you be truly indifferent to whether Eric Schmidt or Ken Lay were CEO at a major company?

I’d like to change my answer from “begging the question” to “tautology”.

I don’t think I’m making a particularly contentious point here, I just seem to have said it in a way that was too similar to some unrelated bad arguments.

If you give me an example of one of my “outlandish theories” then I can tell you whether that’s actually what I’m arguing for.

If it isn’t then you shouldn’t waste your time arguing me out of a position I don’t actually believe.

If it is, then maybe you can do me a favor and explain how I’m wrong - or vice versa.

But if you just say that I’ve made outlandish arguments, that doesn’t help me understand where I have erred.

If you give me an example of one of my “outlandish theories” then I can tell you whether that’s actually what I’m arguing for.

So I must do X or Y before you reveal your “argument”, which is somehow different from the one you’ve already expressed above?
Snort

If it isn’t then you shouldn’t waste your time arguing me out of a position I don’t actually believe.

Yes, wasting my time.  Trying to coax some apparently secret explanation of your comments from you, how they’re not saying what they actually say.  Appearances are deceiving, I guess.

85: I’m not trying to hide anything. I tried to be clear. But I don’t understand how what you’ve said disagrees with what I’ve said in any substantive way. So either I’m being unclear or you are. Or both.

I will try one more time to lay out my opinions - just my opinions, not the arguments for them, in order to be as clear as I can.

1) When interpreted as broadly as Amanda seems to want, “government program” refers to a lot of things that aren’t usually thought of that way. For example, anyone who enjoys property rights benefits from a government program. Or anyone who went to public school. Or anyone who hasn’t been mugged today.

2) Some government programs are undertaken as public goods which increase total wealth (the classic example is a lighthouse). Others are undertaken as redistributive transfers of wealth from the rich to the poor (the main rationale for Medicaid).

3) Some people who object to “government programs” see themselves as objecting to redistribution, not to public goods.

4) When one of those people says they haven’t benefited from a government program, they mean that they do not benefit from redistribution.

5) It is difficult to know whether you are a net beneficiary of redistribution.

6) It is difficult to participate in society without benefiting from many programs, including ones you object to.

7) Because the ultimate redistributive consequences of government programs is not always obvious, there is not a clear way for people who object to redistribution to opt out or net to zero.

8) It is not fair to call people who object to government programs, but fail to drop out of society, hypocrites on that basis.

It is not fair to call people who object to government programs, but fail to drop out of society, hypocrites on that basis.

See, you’ve got this backwards. They’re not hypocrites for failing to drop out of society (well, some of them are, because they keep saying they’re going to but never get around to it), they’re hypocrites for objecting in the first place and electing politicians who will dismantle social safety nets, while at the same time expecting to continue benefiting from those social safety nets. They’re drawing a false distinction in their minds between themselves and those lazy, shiftless Others who are supposedly living large on multiple defrauded welfare checks. And they expect, wrongly, that the politicians they elect are drawing this same distinction and will spare the teabaggers from the effects of the social welfare cuts.

It’s basically a failure of empathy. They’re pissed off at the welfare recipients that they feel don’t deserve it, but the ones who are themselves receiving welfare have all sorts of excuses as to why they do deserve it. And they refuse to entertain the notion that those lazy, shiftless Others might be in the same or similar circumstances as themselves.

Huh, I’d never thought about this list before—and I’ve certainly benefited from several of these, directly or indirectly. Mostly I just assume that, because my entire income is from the NIH and I ride the bus all the time, I’m already so much of a taxpayer-money-mooch it doesn’t even matter. In fact, I’m mooching off my own income tax paying. Every time I do taxes and write my checks to the government I say “I’ll see a little bit of you back soon, money!” ;p

Benquo, I don’t think anything on the list in the graphic is a public good rather than a redistribution. In any case, people are far less reluctant to pay for a functioning society than to give the government money it can then use to send checks to people. I don’t even know of a lot of libertarians who are implacably opposed to the government collecting taxes to enforce (their) property rights.

87: I agree that someone who is collects on unemployment insurance, welfare, medicaid, etc. but despises others who do so is a hypocrite. I was thinking more of people who benefit in ways that are not transparent to them. Spending via tax incentives is one example of how this stuff is hard for people to understand; it doesn’t feel like receiving a subsidy, it feels like keeping more of what you earned.

89: I’d count most of the education subsidies, the child care tax credits, ordinary social security, veterans’ benefits, and Medicare as attempts at public goods spending. (Whether in fact all those programs are net positives is a different issue.)

With programs like Social Security and Medicare, people have (by design) the impression that they are receiving only what they are owed. It doesn’t feel like being the recipient of public largesse, even if the programs are taking a loss. It feels like getting a payout from an annuity or insurance company, that happens to be government-run. You don’t get the payout because you’re charitable, you get the payout because you paid the premium.

Education subsidies are similar to tax deductions for business expenses and R&D, as education is supposed to increase productivity, which is in the public interest.

So you don’t have to tie yourself in knots to benefit from these programs and still despise “handout” programs. You just have to have very little empathy for others.

@86

2) Some government programs are undertaken as public goods which increase total wealth (the classic example is a lighthouse). Others are undertaken as redistributive transfers of wealth from the rich to the poor (the main rationale for Medicaid).

The classic example is a lighthouse?  Are you talking about Coase?  Er, what?
As for the increase wealth vs. redistribution of wealth argument, you’re wrong:
Economic benefits of various stimulus provisions
The greatest ripple effect can be seen with food stamps and UI, with infrastructure spending coming in third.

Basically, all you’ve been doing here is (unsuccessfully) trying to rationalize the sense of entitlement of the privileged.  Your “net benefit” and “increase vs. redistribution of wealth” arguments are simply an attempt to separate who you think is deserving or undeserving of gov’t largesse. Yours is a classic case of “get your gov’t hands off my medicare” thinking.

91: Stimulative effects matter a lot during recessions, but less so when the economy is near capacity.

I think some form of safety net is a good idea even at times of low unemployment, because it’s good for the beneficiaries, but that’s different from being good for the economy as a whole.

Another way to put this is as a hypothetical. Suppose it could be proven that, while food stamps benefited the recipients, the effect on the economy as a whole was slightly negative. Would they suddenly become a bad idea, or would it still be worthwhile to try to make sure everyone has something to eat?

If you think it would still be worthwhile, then most likely at least part of your motivation for food stamps is redistributive.

Wow, put me down for seven, whoops, make that eight of those programs. I’ve been a recipient of Head Start (one of the very first children to attend that program back in 1968), Earned Income Tax Credit, Pell Grants, Student Loans, Veteran’s Benefits, G.I. Bill, Unemployment Insurance, Hope or Lifetime Learning Credit (my wife on that one, but I’m putting her through school, so indirectly).

What Obama needs to do is go around the country and have gatherings where he asks that very same question, “How many of you have never been the recipient of, or have not used a social program? Raise your hands.” and then proceed to tick off all of the above categories in turn telling each of those suckers to drop their hands. Then when he’s finished, see how many are left. I’d be willing to bet that the leftover number among Democrats would be higher than the number among Republicans or Tea Party jerkoffs. Then Obama would have to proceed to rub it in, driving home the message that, like it or not, we do live in a socialistic society, not completely, but more so than they realize. Hell if he really wanted to push the message home, include such services as public schools, police department, and fire department services, those are the remnants of government programs that are now an accepted part of government, minus the Randroids and other home-schooled conservative wankers who want to abolish the Department of Education.