Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] speaking of apocalyptic horsemen...

[Mikhail Kovalenko <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Russell Horn wrote:
>>Its not about poverty or education, the problem is we have
>>subsidies for breeding children with these problems. We're PAYING
>>to have a problem get worse. The issue is that we need to pay for
>>education of the poor, not for the excessive breeding of the
>>poor. Capping a tax benefit at 2 children would help. We have
>>free contraceptives in poor areas, but when the result of not
>>using them is a tax write-off that in 4 years will start bringing
>>you your beer when you want it, why use them? Its not simply the
>>poor that are breeding, its the system abusers that eventually
>>will out-breed the rest in a system so prone to it as this.
>>Further, a penalty for fly-by-night fathers would help as well.
> 
> 
> If that were the case, would it not be rampant in a country like I am living
> in (Scotland) where we have had a social security system that has cared for
> invalids and the unemployed for well over half a century, where education is
> free until the age of eighteen, and university education costs less than
> $1,500 per year?
> 
> What we see is poverty levels declining and the educational level of the
> population rising. Surely that makes for "better" people?
> 
> Why are you so determined to punish rather than care? The evidence from
> elsewhere in the globe speaks loudly against the fallacy of your argument.
> 
> Russell.

The two systems you are comparing are so completely different that they can 
never be converted from one to another directly in one swoop. The social 
security system in the US is an ad hoc addition to the insurance system, and 
its very name and purpose drastically contradicts the capitalistic bases this 
country was built upon. The insurance companies are so integrated into many 
aspects of American life, it will take decades to change the system (I doubt 
it will ever happen). Paid education has its own benefits, too, and some 
institutions have found a sweet spot sucking in both private funds and state 
money (don't look now, but there is a good example right here in town :)

And, BTW, there's not much of any subsidies here for the "bourgeois middle 
classes", either. At least I don't see any...

Cheers,
-- 
MK

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