(January 3, 2014 at 10:46 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: And yet they ran Social Security quite well (over 70 years in fact) until the last decade or so of politicians using almost specifically that argument have torn it apart financially and wish to do so even further.
The reason for the government providing those costly, bureaucratic programs is because it's a centralized entity. It is organized on a national scale, and while chaotic, it is still rather well-managed, especially given the sheer magnitude of the programs and their coverage. Unfortunately there are simply not enough charities in existence to provide the same kind of assistance the government can and does. I would rather my tax money go into expanding those programs and my votes go towards politicians who maximize efficiency and properly balance those budgets than I would abandon the ship and take to spreading everyone out into hundreds of thousands of individual, unorganized rafts over a hull leak that can be fixed with effort and know-how.
You prefer smaller government. I prefer government that can be as large as it wants as long as its size reflects how well it takes care of its citizens. I don't want departments of social workers being slashed due to budget cuts, which is the blunt-force tactic all libertarian and conservative politicians use in regards to "making government smaller." Their idea of "smaller government" is to simply just cut it away. What is left in the vacuum? A vacuum. Those being covered suddenly lose assets previously at their disposal, and waiting and processing times increase. That's not a better or more efficient government, that's a less effective government. More to the point, these programs often are inefficient because they're underfunded, with money being diverted to provide fucking tax breaks for these posh-shits, or poshits as I prefer, who use the savings to put more money in the bank or stock market to profit more from the interest and dividends. Take nothing from the wealthy or as little as you can and expect the poor to be taken care of or take care of themselves is essentially how that argument ends up being summed up as.
Any time you find the government being incompetent at a role, look and see what laws were enacted to minimize their efficiency, and you'll more often than not find it was a law written by someone with a vested interest in keeping that government oversight limited as much as they possibly can.
I see a huge failure on all levels of government, and Canadian government is much larger then the American counterpart. The feds have a massive debt, and have failed with the payments on healthcare leaving the provinces to take up the slack, which the smaller Atlantic provinces cannot afford do to declining populations that were small to begin with. We do not have tax breaks like Americans , and the ones do have are to keep companies from hightailing it too china or the Philippines. My job is only here because of government subsidies to large corporations.
Not to mention we pay 15% sales tax and I linked the income tax here.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html
And we chronic staff shortages in hospitals too.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
