Trickle down economics

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Give a ballpark range.

Were they predatory in 1800? 1900?

When did we go so drastically wrong?
 
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People buy into it because it is always easy to sacrifice someone else’s money. Also because the Left has a strangle-hold on this country and has poisoned the minds of three going on four generations of Americans so greatly that there is no use even discussing or arguing the point.

Envy is a powerful drug. Especially when you get to dress it up as “charity”.
 
So the Civil War era then…

Now we’re getting somewhere.

What was so drastically different in the US, with regards to taxes, in the 1840s than say the 1870s?
 
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Income tax, for one thing. But digging up the past seems to be your thing. I have to worry about what to do with where we are today. If you want to discuss the past, you may want to engage with someone else.
 
sallybutler said:
So why shouldn’t we also support other moral behavior by citizens and government.

Note that I am not advocating for or against governmental social services with my question, I am just asking what is the difference?
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Notice the big difference between those examples?

Thou shalt NOT murder. Thou shalt NOT steal. Thou shalt NOT lie.

Negative. They are forbidding some bad action, not enforcing good behavior. The laws of the State are usually best expressed negatively. The forbiddance of a thing binds very loosely: the law-abiding man need only not do one thing. Whereas the positive enforcement of a thing binds very tightly, the man need not do every thing but that one thing which he is commanded. (If I forbid you to jump, you can still run, walk, sit, stand, etc. If I command you to sit, you cannot walk, jump, run, stand, etc.)

That is one major difference. But the biggest flaw with ‘social services’ is the impossibility of their being efficiently and effectively managed by the Federal government.
 
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Thou shalt honor thy mother and father (old age pensions/medicare/ssi)
 
I think the right idea is we want the hearts of the rich to be charitable. Why should there be law that is binding on the rich to give huge amounts but not on the middle class who makes him rich? The middle class can give to the poor instead of buying products. The moral impetus is on every one but the middle class wants its products and to give the money it spends to the poor, via the rich man. Give the money to the poor if you want to care for the poor, not to the rich man, and the wonder how to make the rich man be moral.
 
I disagree. The object is not to make the rich charitable, it is to ensure decent standards of life to all citizens. We tried relying on charitable giving for centuries. It didn’t work. So nations, as societies, began to understand that a communal effort was needed. It still is. The goal has not yet been achieved, but things are far better for the weakest in our societies than they were in the C19 when private charity was expected to meet most of the burden.
 
We have the right to give our money to the poor. Give half if you want. If you do then good for you, but if you decide you want to give it to the rich man, I’m not helping you get it back.
 
sallybutler said:
Thou shalt honor thy mother and father (old age pensions/medicare/ssi)
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Serve no other God. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain. Keep holy the Sabbath. Those are first and most important commandments. Yet the reactions of most when I suggest those moral laws be enforced by the government usually ranges from horror to accusations of being a member of ISIS. (Interestingly enough, the only government ever formed by God enforced all three of those laws under pain of death, but I digress).

It would seem the acceptance of moral laws not being enforced by the government is already there, it’s just a matter of which moral laws one wants to arbitrarily decide are rightly enforceable and which aren’t. The argument can’t be which is practical to enforce, as the general debt and trajectory of the ‘modern’ world will attest.

Pensions, medicare, and SSI are all (ironically) allegedly examples of ‘receive-what-you-give’ systems. At least, one will invariably hear some version of this whenever reform or cuts are suggested. And all three are systems which, by the natural result of federal management, are failing to achieve even their modest goals.
PickyPicky said:
The goal has not yet been achieved, but things are far better for the weakest in our societies than they were in the C19 when private charity was expected to meet most of the burden.
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Somewhat unfair criticism there, as the effect of technological advancement is entirely ignored. Causation is being assumed when there is no proper control study case to be compared. One usually responds by scornfully bringing up Somalia or some other equally absurd land, so I’ll save you the time and mention that such a reply will suffer the same problem of ignoring all the relevant facts and context in favor of simplistic comparisons.

Countries with historically Catholic majorities tend to be less productive and efficient than those with historically Protestant majorities. One could, using your criteria here, use that single fact and argue that Catholicism encourages inefficiency and sloth on a national level. One would have to ignore all the relevant context to do so, but since we’re playing that game anyway…
 
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The prophets did not only say the Lord condemned the rich for failing to feed the poor. The strongest condemnation was for those who allowed themselves to become fat on the sweat of laborers who weren’t paid a fair wage.

The wealthy aren’t justly allowed to pile up as much wealth for themselves as they can wring out of workers. They cannot expect to ignore the widows and orphans and the beggars at their gates without punishment.

Those of us who own stocks and bonds and who drive a market dependent on workers paid less than a living wage need to realize we are in that class whose wealth makes money by use of the labor of others. We need to keep those who do work for low compensation and those who cannot work in mind. We have a duty to see they are treated fairly.

When the poor cry out, the Lord will hear them. Justice will have its day.
 
PetraG said:
The strongest condemnation was for those who allowed themselves to become fat on the sweat of laborers who weren’t paid a fair wage.
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No, the strongest condemnation was to those who stole or withheld a wage. The Lord would in no way condemn a man for paying a wage that both he and the worker agreed upon beforehand with a signed and notarized contract.
PetraG said:
We need to keep those who do work for low compensation
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You don’t actually care about me, and I reject the notion that your moral grandstanding does anything whatsoever to ease my burdens.
 
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Meanwhile the poor are poor and the suffering are suffering. I propose our nations do something about it. You propose to hope the rich get more charitable than they (we) currently are. I propose we band ourselves together into nations and decide democratically how to proceed. You have some sort of objection, which will, if carried into practice, maintain the poverty of the poor and the suffering of the suffering,

I am not tempted to join you,
 
Well thank God there are wealthy people who are good stewards like you @PickyPicky.

You have wealthy people who are holy like St. Joseph of Arimathea.

You have wealthy people who are unholy like Dives.
 
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It is not an unfair market that is the cause of the economic conditions. It is unbridled consumerism. Where has America’s heart been? It is obvious. Look where the money is. Only now, after Americans have spent themselves deep into consumer debt and have little left for themselves or their children, do they want to help the poor? If America’s heart was with the poor, there would have been no poor. The children of this country think it is a rigged system but it is not. Americans are responsible. Now they want to reinvent the government to get the money back. Sorry, but I cannot support it. It is “make do” time. Thank you parents for it.

The wealthy can spend according to their conscious now. You say give it away; they say let’s do business. Some say give it to Congress, but Congress will use it to give us a 50 trillion dollar debt at the present rate. The only wealth left in this country is in the hands of those who were wise and prudent. I will let them decide how to help this country. They say they can get it done.
 
I’m not concerned in this matter with “helping the country” but with relieving the suffering of the poor.
 
Yes, but the ones with the means to do it are the wealthy. We have to get our money pig of a government out of the way. This government will be beyond broke for a long time. Giving them what is left in the hopes that they will suddenly spend wisely just seems like a pipe dream to me. I won’t trust this government with money until they can manage the current debt.
 
Despite taxation that everyone complains about, money in the U.S. is consistently flowing upward to a small amount of people who are getting richer, and the middle class is shrinking. Who is supposed to handle the consequences of this, these benevolent billionaires? The government seems to be the only organization equipped to manage it.
 
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