I am posting this comment which is intended to respond to Ian's blog, but I can't figure out how to post it on that blog without creating a LiveJournal account.
In your first paragraph, you sort of leave the decision up to tax payers, as to whether they want to fix poverty or not. My response to that would be that, for example, how we are now and the amount of money that taxpayers are giving to the government-wouldn't many of them rather have a larger percentage of their money spent towards poverty than perhaps Iraq or other research? Is it necessarily dependent on what the taxpayers want, as doesn't the government have the ability to use the money that it has already aquired, and have the responsibility to use it wisely and to its best extent?
2 comments:
Why not raise taxes? We have a medicare tax, social security tax, income tax, property tax. Why not institute a poverty tax and force people to help one another? After all most of the class believes the government is morally responsible for helping the poor. Why not act on this responsibility?
That's a good idea; I actually think it is the best idea for, in a way, institutionalizing poverty as a goal in the government. But... I think that is a very idealistic hope and not something that would be easy to pass, therefore, I say that it should be the government's responsibility to use the tax money to divide up, including its obligation to poverty. For now, anyway.
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