My mind meta-boils your question down to: "can't I demand some results from the way my taxes are invested?"
Is what we're discussing, floating the jobless/low earner-producer, 'investment' at all?
I'd personally like to understand the doublethink and mental laziness that led sedachv to make that passive-aggressive rhetorical crack about yummyfajitas hating all the poor souls who choose not to work.
The hard questions regarding govt spending for me are:
* Is it healthy (societally, fiscally, spiritually) long term to consider government to be the charity that can only grow - the ultimate backstop for all bad things that can happen to its people? A charity with unquestionable power to implement its shifting, sometimes controversial/immoral/amoral, agenda?
* Is it okay for the government to prioritize everything and therefore have no priorities at all? Should infrastructure be prioritized over military? What's the proper role of federal involvement in local schools? Should we cap or continue the folly of "non-discretionary" funding of entitlements that dwarf and crowd out all other federal spending? Ultimately, our allowing perpetual deficit spending is what makes this priorities-free dream that we are all living in possible.
* how much of a service delivery role should government have given its track record? The perennial VA healthcare debacles spring to mind. And the raided soc security trust fund that should have been invested and grown, but has been busted since Johnson. Student loans and the skyrocketing college tuitions. Unintended consequences! At least [my favorite congresscritter] meant well.
It fascinates me how smart people whose arguments in favor of government as 'the answer' to X can instantly shift their argument for X from a learned basis like statistical evidence/quoting an expert to a faith-driven, eye-squinting, chasm-leaping abstraction, or worse, emotional outbursts (frequently rude) - and sometimes ALL IN THE SAME BREATH.
I find such people, like sedachv, troublesome and no fun at parties. We might be doomed.
>I'd personally like to understand the doublethink and mental laziness that led sedachv to make that passive-aggressive rhetorical crack about yummyfajitas hating all the poor souls who choose not to work.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around logic that assumes people who don't work by choice are entitled to the results of my efforts and yet have the gall to paint me as selfish for protesting.
Is what we're discussing, floating the jobless/low earner-producer, 'investment' at all?
I'd personally like to understand the doublethink and mental laziness that led sedachv to make that passive-aggressive rhetorical crack about yummyfajitas hating all the poor souls who choose not to work.
The hard questions regarding govt spending for me are:
* Is it healthy (societally, fiscally, spiritually) long term to consider government to be the charity that can only grow - the ultimate backstop for all bad things that can happen to its people? A charity with unquestionable power to implement its shifting, sometimes controversial/immoral/amoral, agenda?
* Is it okay for the government to prioritize everything and therefore have no priorities at all? Should infrastructure be prioritized over military? What's the proper role of federal involvement in local schools? Should we cap or continue the folly of "non-discretionary" funding of entitlements that dwarf and crowd out all other federal spending? Ultimately, our allowing perpetual deficit spending is what makes this priorities-free dream that we are all living in possible.
* how much of a service delivery role should government have given its track record? The perennial VA healthcare debacles spring to mind. And the raided soc security trust fund that should have been invested and grown, but has been busted since Johnson. Student loans and the skyrocketing college tuitions. Unintended consequences! At least [my favorite congresscritter] meant well.
It fascinates me how smart people whose arguments in favor of government as 'the answer' to X can instantly shift their argument for X from a learned basis like statistical evidence/quoting an expert to a faith-driven, eye-squinting, chasm-leaping abstraction, or worse, emotional outbursts (frequently rude) - and sometimes ALL IN THE SAME BREATH.
I find such people, like sedachv, troublesome and no fun at parties. We might be doomed.