One thing I've learned since I started to do this, tongue-in-cheek seriously, is you can actually learn something new by blowing your pie hole. Somehow, in defending our government's role in providing for the general welfare I managed to inform myself of what that role should be and how we arrive at that balance. I'm real big on having our actions meet our original concepts. I don't know that those concepts should be referred to as values but I'm big on semantics too.
I don't believe in the idea of government largess. I don't think it's a legitimate function of the government. I also don't think there's much largess extended by the government no matter what we may have heard; at least not to the poor. We have managed to elevate big parts of this country from literal third world status in the last 50 years or so. Some people disapprove. I'm kinda proud of that. Glad I could help in my small way. It is as it should be for a very good reason. Grinding poverty drags down all of us from the working class to the famous 1%. We owe it to ourselves, through government to reduce things that are a drag on all of our prosperity. That's how you provide for the general welfare.
The truth is, through government, read taxes, no one should be forced to pay for anything that doesn't contribute to the common weal. That contribution to the common weal is the logic behind taxes.
Here's another truth. If we cut every dime of so called welfare spending from the federal budget we wouldn't gain so much as 5 % for other things. That percentage hasn't changed in 50 years. We would, however, lose a quantum percentage of the overall progress those expenditures have given all of us. That would be the definition of "counter-productive". I think that would be more readily obvious if the issue been cast in the realistic light I have shown above. It has occurred to me that is very important to know. I'm glad I now know it.
As devout congregants of any philosophy we have an obligation to charity for the sake of charity. As citizens of any government we have an obligation only to the general welfare. At least, in our system if we try to do otherwise our efforts all fall well short.
There is a big difference between the rich and malefactors of great wealth. I've known several people we would consider rich. They have been as honest as any other class of folks I've met. They seem nice enough. Some of their perceptions seem a little skewed to me but that's understandable. The primary fault seems to be an isolated kind of elitism. It's hard to understand things outside your experience no matter who you are. Honesty is a shared value no matter the amounts involved.
Because of the actions of a few malefactors the rich have been thoroughly demonized. People resent the increased access of the wealthy to members of our government, the increased input to the decision making process. As things stand that famous 1% pay about 24% of the overall taxes. If they don't have increased access; in the real world they should. Not disproportionate access but a reasonable say in how their contribution is spent. That's called "fair play". Yeah, that's a value and a basic concept. However, like all of our values and basic concepts it has to be limited by common sense. Daily we are reminded common sense isn't as common as we would like.
We tend to think of the 1% as this very small, very exclusive club. There are 313 million Americans. One percent is 3.13 million people. If you expand that to the upper 5% ya got more rich people than, say, firefighters, policemen, veterans or illegal aliens. It's a good thing most of them behave, just as it's a good thing most firefighters, policemen, veterans and even illegal aliens behave.
You also have more well to do people than we do in poverty. It's important we keep it that way.
So, what did I learn? Charity for the sake of charity is very important. Assistance from the government is not the same as charity because it must be limited to that which benefits all. That means assistance to the poor and the well- to- do should be limited to what benefits us all. There should be no undo resentment in either instance.
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