Entitlements and Smart Decisions
photo credit Unsplash
Who doesn’t like to get things for free? A free t-shirt, a free pencil, even a free sticker. It’s nice to get something that you didn’t have to plan or budget for, even if it isn’t something you actually need. It brightens your day and can help ease anxiety about the rest of the many many things you must manage to afford. And we accept these little trinkets as a lovely bonus to our otherwise hard and incessant lives. But at what arbitrary point do we draw a line and say that this freebie is fine but this one isn’t?
The point of the above is to think about how arbitrary these ideas are regarding what is acceptable and what isn’t. So many people argue about how necessary it is to give tax breaks to the rich. This in essence is a freebie. Taxes pay for the various functions of the government that we all rely on, so a tax cut for the wealthy just means they get the same benefits without having to pay their fair share. The US tax code is rife with loopholes and complicated language that has the effect of only benefiting people who can afford knowledgeable accountants. And when the wealthy take advantage of these loopholes, they are lauded as brilliant, smart, ingenious! They have gamed the system to their advantage and everyone cheers their ingenuity.
However, the poor person, desperate, struggling, begging the government to help them afford the basics for survival, they are looked down upon. If you need food stamps or medicare or public housing, well how dare you expect to get something for “free”. So there are restrictions, criteria, scorn. And as the rich are labelled brilliant for their ability to manipulate the system, the poor are labelled lazy and entitled for wanting to use that same system for their benefit. Why is this? And at what point do you draw that line? When does a form of aid cease being an entitlement and start being a smart decision?
I know that one of the main arguments for tax cuts is that it provides the wealthy with incentives to grow the economy. That extra money saved in taxes can instead be used to start more businesses, provide more jobs, increase more salaries. I’m not going to debate whether these things happen or not. Instead I want to focus on this reasoning and apply it in the same way to programs that assist the poor. Imagine how much more productive people could be if they were all given a free, quality education? There is no doubt that there are brilliant minds out there that are unfortunately suffocated due to their inability to climb out of the perpetual cycle of poverty. Wealthy people send their children to expensive private schools because they know that a quality education gives their children the best chance to succeed later in life. So why not provide quality education to all? Think of all the innovation and economical growth that could be happening if we, as a society, chose to provide opportunities to every child and not just the lucky ones that can afford it. And at the very least, think about how much better society would be in general with a population that was well-educated. We celebrate the Renaissance, not the Dark Ages, for a reason. So why not provide this freebie? It would have the same, if not better effects than tax cuts for the rich.
Or another example, affordable food, housing, and healthcare. Imagine a society where people didn’t have to worry about going bankrupt because they fell ill. That society would have people with more pocket money to spur the economy. Or what about a society that chose to provide free preventative healthcare to mitigate future costly health problems. That society would have an abundance of healthy workers that could continue working and growing the economy. Or what about a society that ensured that people weren’t going hungry but instead had healthy food options. Again that society would have a healthy available workforce. Or what about a society that ensured people had an affordable place to live. That society would have content people able to focus on innovation, instead of focusing on the everyday stresses of survival. All of these things could do exactly what tax cuts for the rich claim to do. So why not try them? Tax cuts for the wealthy have been around for a long, long time, yet all of our problems haven’t disappeared. In many cases, things have actually gotten worse. So again I ask, why not try something else? Programs benefiting the poor, don’t have to be seen as entitlements, they can be seen the same way tax cuts are… as smart decisions to grow the economy. That arbitrary line between entitlement and smart decision, is just that, arbitrary.