“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer.”Benjamin Franklin
As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, when you subsidize something, you get more of it. Subsidize the behavior that makes people poor, and you'll get more poor people.
2 comments:
It has long been a truism that Governments have only two ways to discourage actions - either tax it prohibitively (as California does to smokers and people who drive cars) or outlaw it entirely (such as murder or speeding) with varying levels of punishment from fines to the death penalty.
But just as you say, there are only two ways for a government to ENCOURAGE certain actions - either make it cheaper (either through lowering taxes or paying part of the price) or pay people to do them (such as when paying welfare for not working or similar).
This is what you get when you have a government picking winners and losers.
We've spent trillions on "The War On Poverty" ever since Lyin' Bastard Johnson started it in the 60's. All we've gotten is more poverty. Time to stop throwing money at it.
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