FED UP WITH FACEBOOK?
Join Us On CONSTITUTION NETWORK
Where Conservative Americans Have A Voice!
What Really Works?
Thomas Sowell explained the difference between liberals and conservatives this way: “[Liberals] are for helping people that are disadvantaged, as they put it. Whereas I think conservatives want to stop people from being disadvantaged.”
Liberal ideology sounds good; help people, take care of the poor, make everything equal. But what happens over time? What happens over the years when a population is given a fish rather than a fishing pole. As this excellent article explains, the one thing America’s poverty stricken cities have in common is that they have all been run by Democrats for decades.
According to: thefederalistpapers
“Each of these places has been Democratic for many decades, some even longer. And what do each of these places have in common?
That’s right, they’re all run by Democrats. Big government, high taxes, lots of regulation, and plenty of welfare and poverty. As Analytical Economist explains:
“Liberals understand economics when it’s convenient for them.”
Want to fight obesity? Tax sugar or trans fats, because liberals realize that when you tax something, people buy less of it. Want to encourage green energy? Subsidize it and you’ll get more of it.
When it comes to the question of redistribution, liberals abandon this logic. Are we supposed to forget the laws of economics and not realize that by taxing work you’ll get less of it, and by subsidizing poverty you’ll get more of it?”
Don’t just take my word for it. Economist Daniel Mitchell has a great blog post detailing the research on the issue:
Welfare spending used to be associated with reductions in poverty. But when President Johnson launched his so-called War on Poverty and dramatically increased the level of redistribution, the link between welfare spending and poverty reduction substantially weakened.
“…the real per capita cost in the United States of federal public aid rose 70 percent in the 11 years between 1953—the first year the federal government reported an official poverty rate—and Johnson’s 1964 remarks.
In the 11 years that followed, however, that same real per capita cost increased by an astonishing 434 percent—that is, more than six times faster than in 1953–64. …in 1953–64, every 10 percentage point increase in public aid was associated with a 1 percentage point drop in the official poverty rate. Compare that with the experience of the 11 years following the outbreak of hostilities in the War on Poverty.
During that interval, every 1 percentage point fall in the poverty rate was accompanied by a 50 percentage point increase in real public aid. …the relationship between public aid and the poverty rate is subject to the principle of diminishing returns.”
Not just a diminishing return. There’s a point at which more redistribution actually leads to an increase in poverty.
Mitchell likens this to the Laffer Curve – which demonstrates that there’s a point in which high tax rates actually lead to less revenue by discouraging work and encouraging income sheltering.
Read more: thefederalistpapers