Posted by silentpadna on 5/6/2014 3:05:00 PM (view original):
I see where your perspective is. It's not a matter of "taking it away" from people. It's a matter of their benefits running out. It's in your paradigm. It's a matter of those who get the benefit not exceeding what's been promised. When the benefits run out, take the MW job - something. If I get 1 year of $330/wk and I know it's running out, I better do something about it.
I just illustrated a scenario to you. Scenarios like this are real. Disincentives are real. This is one of many such scenarios. You seem to have some clue about certain economic theories. Opportunity cost is more than a theory - happens in practice constantly. Whether you are an individual or a business, your decisions are all about taking one opportunity at the expense of others (including the opportunity of doing nothing).
The government (or my neighbor) does not owe me a chance to stay in my home or to keep my car. As a society we've tasked the government in replacing individuals for providing safety nets for each other. As a result, we conveniently get to miss out on seeing ourselves actually take what we produce and go hand it directly to those who don't - for whatever reason (whether a good or bad reason). It insulates us from having to deal with the fact that there are many who would take advantage of us. If I was giving my neighbor a hand-out directly, do you think he'd sit on his *** all day in full view? He'd more likely be motivated to do something in exchange for the help - or at the very least, attempt to find a way to stop receiving it from me. Putting the government in the middle removes accountability from those being helped to those who are helping.
That is not to say there isn't a place for government to help; but it is completely broken the way it is now. Raising minimum wage, extending unemployment, taxing the rich, spending on government "make-work" jobs doesn't do anything to remove the disincentives that exist in these perpetual programs.
Look, we clearly see the world differently. In my view, any one of us could lose everything in a moment through no fault of our own. We could also fail at getting it back no matter how hard we work. Things like unemployment are good for everyone. People that lose jobs, businesses that sell food and gas and clothing and anything else to people who collect unemployment, people that work for businesses that sell food and gas and clothing and anything else to people who are unemployed, and so on.
The downside? Yeah, there might be some people gaming the system. Yeah, some people might be choose to stay home instead of working.
Seems like a small price considering the fact that reforming unemployment isn't going to lower anyone's taxes.