this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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As a conservative I support this idea, because it has no means testing.
Means testing is fucked up in two ways:
The perverse incentive structure is the worse of the two, in my opinion. Just like crack cocaine hacks the brain, presents something the brain can’t handle because it didn’t evolve for, rewarding a person with resources only when they don’t succeed basically programs a person to fail.
I’m all for the government generously giving with an open hand to people, and letting the people decide when to start receiving benefits and when to stop. People are either worth it or they aren’t, and a person doesn’t stop being worth it just because they got their shit together, or start being worth it just because they failed.
Government should treat everyone the same. If a government wants to present a service like “free housing if you want it”, I’m totally fine with that.
"Conservative" is not exactly a rigidly-defined term, but here in the US these two lines I quoted from your comment are absolutely polar opposites.
Edit: I should probably start by saying that this is somewhat off-topic.
In the Netherlands we tend to rank our parties along left-right and progressive-conservative axes separately. Conservative-left gets you Christians who care about the poor. In other countries there's also the "I want the government to support our workers", "I want to go back to Soviet times" and "I'm leftist but LGBTQ is wrong" types.
It's an interesting difference. By supporting aid to the poor, you are trying to conserve that which already exists in your country. By supporting aid to the poor, we are trying to progress beyond what already exists in our country. Same issue, same viewpoint, but because your country is so much more advanced than us already on this issue, it makes you a conservative and me a progressive.
Oh I'd never call myself a conservative, and most conservative parties here are right-wing as well.
It's a fiscally conservative position, where fiscally conservative is defined by someone who wants the government to spend less money and have a balanced budget.
Homeless people are a net burden on the government, even if the only costs are to arrest and imprison them. Since we are already paying to house them (in prison) it would make sense instead to give them a modest place to stay and enough support to get them back to a healthy state of living. This becomes a net financial benefit because a healthy employed person pays income tax, they buy stuff and pay sales tax, etc. so the money spent to get them back on their feet is repaid and then some.
The same thing happens again when the government offers free college or vocational training to people, the amount of taxes someone pays goes up with their income, and using the government as a single-payer to these schools will help keep costs low.
Case in point: in Ontario we had a program called Second Career (it still lives on as 'Better Jobs Ontario' but it's been hamstrung by the conservative government) which was funded through EI and would pay your tuition, books, supplies, and give a basic living allowance up to $28k per year if you qualify. It would cover any 2-year diploma program, with the caveat that if you failed out you would be on the hook to repay the tuition/books/supplies costs.
I did that program starting in 2009 and paid out-of-pocket (w/OSAP) for a third year to upgrade from Technician to Technologist. Prior to that, our household income was low enough that we effectively paid 0 income tax after deductions. After graduating, I tripled my income, and in the 11 or so years since I've doubled it again. For the ~$60k the government spent on me, they made that back in about the first 3 years after graduation and the rest has been profit from their perspective.
Just to continue my point: "fiscal conservatism" has had nothing whatsoever to do with US conservatism since Ronald "Deficits Don't Matter" Reagan blew the budget to pieces in the 1980s and started us on our debt spiral that currently has us sitting at $35 fucking trillion.
Ah.
I believe in limited government. Removing means testing from government services reduces the size of government.
A conservative with compassion and sense is always a welcome sight. This is a pretty obvious solution imo, but the powers that be seem to disagree.
I'm for restricting human behavior as little as possible while still allowing anyone to escape any bad situation they don't want to be apart of.
Bingo
You shouldn't have to work for a roof over your head and mental health support.