income redistribution
353 pieces tagged “income redistribution”, newest first.
Democrats' Debate: No Solution for Economic Inequality, No Interest in Economic Growth
You may not have noticed, but Lincoln Chafee, the erstwhile Republican U.S. senator and Independent-turned-Democratic governor, had one penetrating comment at the Democrats' debate Tuesday night. "But let me just say this about income inequality," he said toward the end. "We've had a lot of talk over the last few minutes, hours or tens of minutes, but no one is saying how we're going to fix it."
Is Economic Equality a Moral Imperative?
America is more distant from the 1933 beginning of the New Deal (82 years) than that beginning was from the 1865 end of the Civil War (68 years). Both episodes involved the nation's understanding of equality: The war affirmed equality of natural rights, the New Deal addressed unequal social conditions. Today's Democratic Party is frozen, like a fly in amber, in the New Deal preoccupation — but with less excuse than Democrats had during the Great Depression. The party believes that economic inequality is an urgent problem, and that its urgency should be understood in terms of huge disparities of wealth. Neither proposition is (to use the term Jefferson used when he wrote equality into America's catechism) a self-evident truth.
Redistribution: The Unconquerable Delusion
"A pope that mentions Dorothy Day is a pope that rocks," tweeted Neera Tanden of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Tanden might have wished to reel back that praise if she had known that Day, though a prominent pacifist and socialist, was also a fervent opponent of abortion, birth control, Social Security and the sexual revolution. It's fitting that Pope Francis should have invoked Dorothy Day among his pantheon of great Americans — she's a symbol of where leftists always go wrong. This pope is going wrong in the same way. The left's delusions of "social justice" seem indomitable — impervious to evidence.
The New Left: Envy, Resentment and Hate
Bernie Sanders is angry. Who is he angry at? Rich people. Why rich people? That's not clear. At Liberty University, Sanders complained about a small number of people who have "huge yachts, and jet planes and tens of billions" while others "are struggling to feed their families." In Madison Wisconsin, Sanders called for a "political revolution against greed."
An Unhealthy Dependence on Food Stamps
Good news: The number of Americans using food stamps in 2014 declined slightly from the previous year. So why does the 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity say this indicator is headed in the "wrong direction"? There are a couple of reasons. For one, the food-stamp program (officially known now as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is still much larger today than it was a decade ago — or, indeed, just a few years ago. In 2008, it was below 30 million. By 2013, it had hit 47.6 million.
Bush's College Plan Even Worse Than What He Recently Decried
Not the way to win over conservatives.
In Washington, DC, Welfare Is Already on Par With Europe
European-level dependency is no longer a question of "when."
Hillary Clinton Would Make College Even More Expensive
In the days ahead, millions of kids will pack their bags and leave home (hopefully for good) to go to college. For parents experiencing this for the first time: welcome to the biggest financial scam in America. Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University and an expert on college costs, puts it very plainly: "Colleges and universities may be the least cost-efficient institutions in the United States. No industry, perhaps other than prostitution, has seen less productivity improvements than higher education."
Another Education Subsidy
If elected president, Hillary Clinton has promised to spend $350 billion to make college "more affordable." The U.S. already has an $18 trillion debt (and growing by the day), but Clinton wants to add to it. That's not affordable. Too many young people are graduating from universities unable to find jobs, or are underemployed. Slate.com references a 2014 study of youth joblessness by the Economic Policy Institute. It found "...roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it's not a perfect snapshot of the here and now.
Envirofascist Industry: Growth Through Coercion
Government coercion inevitably leads to statism.
Should America Redistribute More Wealth?
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont deserves credit for a certain candor many of his congressional colleagues lack. He calls himself, according to The New York Times, a "democratic Socialist." In Oakland on Monday, Sanders, who is running for president, ranted against what he called "the billionaire class" and called for redirecting the redistribution of wealth in America. "What our campaign is about is creating a political revolution, which says to the billionaire class, they can't have it all, this country, our government, belong to all of us," he said.
Go File Those Taxes — It's Income Redistribution Day
Confiscating money from half the nation's citizens and giving it to the other half.