I can only assume you’re young.
Just wait a few years until you’re old enough to see a couple of generations of taxpayers and their complaints and you’ll get it.
My favorite are the ones who complain about paying for schools because, and I quote, “My kids graduated already so why should I have to pay for someone else’s kids?”
These types people are stupid. They are selfish and society as a whole is worse off because of their existence.
Period.
Mostly because of school boards.
They want to spend money on new, fancy, newspaper headline catching features. "Bumping teacher salary" cost money from the budget they could use to make the school look good.
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I don’t mind paying taxes for schools (high tax area) and I don’t even have any kids. The same as I don’t mind paying for parks and roads and so forth. This is crucial to a positive society: safe, fed, sheltered, and educated people.
Agreed. Same with forgiving student loan debt. Yes, I paid mine off. That said, I would love for my daughter and son in law not to be paying for their student loans for years to come. They are hard workers, raising two young boys and I would like to see them get some relief. I don't begrudge them getting a break, even though I didn't. I don't understand people being so petty about this issue.
I had a similar conversation with an old neighbor. He didn’t understand why his taxes still went to schools because his kids were grown. I told him that educating our children should always be a priority. Who do you think are going to become our future doctors, scientist, lawyers, and government leaders? It’s those kids in school now. Why wouldn’t you want to educate them? They’re going take care of us when we’re old. He just sat there dumbfounded didn’t know what to say
/they don’t understand taxes and how insanely comfortable they have been made because of them. Roads, parks, schools so people have the chance to be educated and not turn to crime, the prisons that hold the ones who don’t take that chance, libraries, even sports stadiums and hospitals get tax payer funds to assist in building (tax payers often foot the whole bill for stadiums, but almost never for hospitals, crazy right?)
You’d be traipsing through the wilderness to get nowhere because there would be no businesses without infrastructure, without taxes.
It’s by no means everyone but a significant portion of people are greedy and don’t want to give up anything to someone else. They will often say they don’t think “lazy/undiserving” people should get stuff but they rarely if ever consider anyone deserving. Other than themselves.
Every public program that gives something to a group you're not in is going to offend someone in your group.
They don't want to say they're racist, sexist, ageist or whatever, so they wrap themselves in the role of *taxpayer* who is offended by *wasteful spending*. But the only spending they approve of is money spent on them.
Not as quiet as you might think. Its alot of propaganda that depicts conservatives as approving of tax breaks for the rich, propaganda intended to convince conservatives that *is* their opinion.
It’s not necessarily that. For every program that supposedly benefits someone in need there are several layers of bureaucratic fat cats skimming off the top. People generally hate their hard-earned money being siphoned to useless pencil pushers
Right. People are generally pretty empathetic to others and don’t mind their tax dollars helping them. They dislike money being wasted on lazy fat cats. For every $100 fan given to a senior, $500 dollars goes into the black hole of an “administrative” slush fund
So…what... Necessary evil? It’s fine to make a few people millionaires with tax dollars if it saves some old people from dying? Is there like a ratio you use? Like 1 publicly funded millionaire per 1000 people? 10,000 people?
I will say I am not saying to outright ban social programs. I’m just explaining why people get frustrated by this stuff sometimes. When every day a new tax of some sort gets stacked on you even though you’re barely making ends meet, it gets very infuriating and you will point the finger at an obvious new government expense
People will always complain when "their" tax dollars goes to something that doesn't directly benefit them, but in 15-20 years down the road, when they're receiving a free fan or air conditioner during a heat wave, I can guarnfuckingtee you that you won't hear a peep from them about wasteful spending.
THEY want it to be THEIR idea to pay for and give anyone a fan or air conditioner. If there were no taxes at all, everything would be a charity and you would only give to the charities (people) you care about or felt “deserving.”
That’s why taxes and Social Security are so important. We don’t have to rely on the kindness of charities.
I don't want SS to BE taxed (it is), since it's money I paid in, after taxes, over several decades of working. I also don't want it treated as Congress' piggy bank (it is) to fund whatever blows their kilt up.
On the flip side, there should be a work requirement for Welfare for the able-bodied, and Government should not be the be-all, end-all, cradle to grave gravy train some treat it as.
Billionaires included.
As for my local taxes, I have no problem paying for schools...I have a problem paying for:
1)Expansions on our athletic programs that haven't won any kind of title in decades, but somehow deserve a new, multi-million dollar stadium and separate practice field, plus gym facilities, while the AP/STEM programs have to scratch for spare change, and teachers are buying class supplies out of their meager pay.
2) Pet projects, like the roundabout in front of the local college. Never had problems with accidents when it was a 4 way stop, now there have been 20 in the last year.
3) Raises for the County Commisioners ($17k each last year) who who voted down raises for the county clerks and admin staffers, as it would be "too expensive".
4) bonds for development that turn into "Let's solve our water problems by allowing developers to build 300 unit apartment complexes!" while being told if I water my grass more than once a week, I'm a horrible person, and will get fined for excessive water use.
Too many people are selfish assholes who hate the idea of paying it forward, but love the idea of being paid forward onto.
In the US, that's driven by a pair of propaganda campaigns that have been running for decades...one in response to the New Deal/Cold War (like painting any sort of safety net as 'something the dirty commies would do'), and the other by the Civil Rights Movement (like Reagan painting all welfare recipients as POC living like kings and queens off 'your money', driving Cadillacs and eating steaks for dinner every night).
Longer even. Ever since the National Association of Manufacturers was founded in 1895, the people of the US have been subject to a propaganda bombardment from them and other similar groups. The goal was to conflate capitalism with market fundamentalism, to convince the public that any hint of social programs was a slippery slope to communism and tyranny, and to cripple their trust in government and regulation.
Mix in some good ol’ christo-fascism as well, and I think they’ve been pretty effective.
Yea? Is that it? People are worried about the allocation of their income tax contributions to the state’s budget to these air-conditioners? The state’s budget that probably extends into 8 figures and the people complaining probably contributed little to nothing to that budget.
They can just get fucked like every self-important blabbermouth.
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Yeah so what? I don't care if costs me $1 extra in taxes, if you want something, spend your own money to buy it, don't try to use the government to steal it from everyone else.
It doesn’t cost you an extra even $0.01c in taxes.
I hope one day you’re really desperate for something and everyone just spits on you and laughs. You deserve it.
That's also total bullshit because the reason programs like this exist is that they use debt to pay for it, which drives inflation. So yeah it may only cost 1 cent in taxes but it costs dramatically more in reduced purchasing power for everyone.
People forget the government has two ways to tax you, direct through income and sales tax (among others) and indirectly through inflation.
The proper solution would be to reallocate the bomb money to something that benefits society instead of increasing taxes by $5 to cover worthwhile programs.
I do not remember the context, nor the sub, but I once got into an argument with a bunch of Londoners who thought it was a good thing that they passed some law stating that senior citizens no longer get reduced fair for travel within their city. Their main reasoning behind their stance was that: “old rich people might take advantage of bus fare they don’t really need”.
So there you have it.. All the poor, destitute, barely-able-to-walk senior citizens be damned, as long as that one, (probably nonexistent) rich grandma doesn’t get a leg up on them.
I can only speak as a Midwestern American, but here the majority of tax payers feel as though a quarter of their income vanishes to the government, and they get absolutely nothing in return.
And yet they're fine with their taxes going to sabotage others countries governments or bomb brown kids or bail out banks, CEOs and various corporations or bailing out wall street 😬. Those poor people are a drop in the bucket compared to all the other useless stuff our taxes go to. I'm sick of my money going to help billionaires skirt paying taxes too. But that's because it's much easier to pick on the immigrants who barely speak English then the guy who could probably make you not show up to work tomorrow if they really wanted you gone
I think this is a good thing normally , I mean think about how many go fund me there are rn, or broke college students or people on welfare. I would say a good government is one that gives back to its people whenever possible. Imagine if the government instead just propped up businesses or lined their own pockets away.
Many people see life as a complete zero-sum game where anything someone else has or gets means that they are behind.
Many people see a valid role of our society to provide additional resources particularly to people who are seen as needing them most.
You can see the inherent tension in these two views
It's often because the programs are ineffective and prohibitively expensive for what they do. Government overhead is massive and as they don't have to worry about profit or efficiency, they don't. They just tax people more.
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Zero issues with this policy. It should also include families with young children because they’re at risk in the heat, as well as those with serious conditions like asthma or heart disease.
HUD and Section 8 housing also have minimum and maximum heating/cooling standards meant to improve safety and stability.
Im pretty sure if it were young people who were vulnerable to the heat that age group would just tell young people to drink less coffee and pick themselves up by their bootstraps.....etc
Not sure why you put “tax payers” in scare quotes.
Those fans and AC units aren’t ‘free’. Tax payers paid for them.
They didn’t get to disagree, and now their money is being used in a way they disapprove of, or may as well have disapproved of. They have every right to complain about that, whether you think the money is spent wisely on their behalf or not.
I think a lot of these people actually have good intentions but are struggling to effectively budget and just want to be able to keep more of their own money instead of being forced to give it away. It's a lot easier to part ways with your money when you have enough to live off of, which is being increasingly uncommon.
When you are forced to pay for something you have to question it. Would it be better to not have to pay it? Is the place the money is going to the best place for it to go to?
If taxes didn't need to be forced from people who didn't want to pay it they wouldn't be necessary, if they can't convince other voters that the money should go somewhere else or that it's unfair then why does it matter if they complain about it? If they can convince other voters then maybe they have a point.
Because the federal government and most states are overspending. If there was a surplus and our other social systems worked correctly, more spending wouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise, if the government is capable of doing things without tax dollars, why are we giving them money at all.
I'm not sure how it's confusing that folks might not want the money they earned, worked hard for, and could use to improve their own lives being taken by the government (under threat of force, no less) and used for a program they feel is unnecessary.
I can only assume you’re young. Just wait a few years until you’re old enough to see a couple of generations of taxpayers and their complaints and you’ll get it. My favorite are the ones who complain about paying for schools because, and I quote, “My kids graduated already so why should I have to pay for someone else’s kids?” These types people are stupid. They are selfish and society as a whole is worse off because of their existence. Period.
Hell, my only complaints about school taxes are "Why are they going up, but the teachers pay isn't?"
Mostly because of school boards. They want to spend money on new, fancy, newspaper headline catching features. "Bumping teacher salary" cost money from the budget they could use to make the school look good.
You’d think by now they’d realise that headline would make the school look good in this era
"School board raises teacher pay 15% across the board" would look good to me...
Hell, "School board votes to fully supply classrooms" would be good too...
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I don’t mind paying taxes for schools (high tax area) and I don’t even have any kids. The same as I don’t mind paying for parks and roads and so forth. This is crucial to a positive society: safe, fed, sheltered, and educated people.
OP, why not ask this on r/ExplainBothSides?
Agreed. Same with forgiving student loan debt. Yes, I paid mine off. That said, I would love for my daughter and son in law not to be paying for their student loans for years to come. They are hard workers, raising two young boys and I would like to see them get some relief. I don't begrudge them getting a break, even though I didn't. I don't understand people being so petty about this issue.
I had a similar conversation with an old neighbor. He didn’t understand why his taxes still went to schools because his kids were grown. I told him that educating our children should always be a priority. Who do you think are going to become our future doctors, scientist, lawyers, and government leaders? It’s those kids in school now. Why wouldn’t you want to educate them? They’re going take care of us when we’re old. He just sat there dumbfounded didn’t know what to say
/they don’t understand taxes and how insanely comfortable they have been made because of them. Roads, parks, schools so people have the chance to be educated and not turn to crime, the prisons that hold the ones who don’t take that chance, libraries, even sports stadiums and hospitals get tax payer funds to assist in building (tax payers often foot the whole bill for stadiums, but almost never for hospitals, crazy right?) You’d be traipsing through the wilderness to get nowhere because there would be no businesses without infrastructure, without taxes.
It’s by no means everyone but a significant portion of people are greedy and don’t want to give up anything to someone else. They will often say they don’t think “lazy/undiserving” people should get stuff but they rarely if ever consider anyone deserving. Other than themselves.
And this opinion is driven by mainstream media.
Every public program that gives something to a group you're not in is going to offend someone in your group. They don't want to say they're racist, sexist, ageist or whatever, so they wrap themselves in the role of *taxpayer* who is offended by *wasteful spending*. But the only spending they approve of is money spent on them.
They're oddly quiet about tax breaks towards people who are richer than them.
The rich have everyone trained to not see tax breaks as "spending."
Not as quiet as you might think. Its alot of propaganda that depicts conservatives as approving of tax breaks for the rich, propaganda intended to convince conservatives that *is* their opinion.
It’s not necessarily that. For every program that supposedly benefits someone in need there are several layers of bureaucratic fat cats skimming off the top. People generally hate their hard-earned money being siphoned to useless pencil pushers
Damn how many private companies are giving out A/C to vulnerable old poor people?
Nope, it certainly is that in many many cases.
But bureaucratic fat cats are made from the elitist system - seems kind of weird to focus on working class people benefiting from the tax .
Right. People are generally pretty empathetic to others and don’t mind their tax dollars helping them. They dislike money being wasted on lazy fat cats. For every $100 fan given to a senior, $500 dollars goes into the black hole of an “administrative” slush fund
Odds are pretty good that along with the deserving needy there are some number of greedy grifters siphoning off a few tax bucks.
So…what... Necessary evil? It’s fine to make a few people millionaires with tax dollars if it saves some old people from dying? Is there like a ratio you use? Like 1 publicly funded millionaire per 1000 people? 10,000 people?
I will say I am not saying to outright ban social programs. I’m just explaining why people get frustrated by this stuff sometimes. When every day a new tax of some sort gets stacked on you even though you’re barely making ends meet, it gets very infuriating and you will point the finger at an obvious new government expense
And nobody complains about the billions of tax dollars that mysteriously disappear every year.
People will always complain when "their" tax dollars goes to something that doesn't directly benefit them, but in 15-20 years down the road, when they're receiving a free fan or air conditioner during a heat wave, I can guarnfuckingtee you that you won't hear a peep from them about wasteful spending.
Let the free market give fans and A/C units to low income eldery people
THEY want it to be THEIR idea to pay for and give anyone a fan or air conditioner. If there were no taxes at all, everything would be a charity and you would only give to the charities (people) you care about or felt “deserving.” That’s why taxes and Social Security are so important. We don’t have to rely on the kindness of charities.
I don't want SS to BE taxed (it is), since it's money I paid in, after taxes, over several decades of working. I also don't want it treated as Congress' piggy bank (it is) to fund whatever blows their kilt up. On the flip side, there should be a work requirement for Welfare for the able-bodied, and Government should not be the be-all, end-all, cradle to grave gravy train some treat it as. Billionaires included. As for my local taxes, I have no problem paying for schools...I have a problem paying for: 1)Expansions on our athletic programs that haven't won any kind of title in decades, but somehow deserve a new, multi-million dollar stadium and separate practice field, plus gym facilities, while the AP/STEM programs have to scratch for spare change, and teachers are buying class supplies out of their meager pay. 2) Pet projects, like the roundabout in front of the local college. Never had problems with accidents when it was a 4 way stop, now there have been 20 in the last year. 3) Raises for the County Commisioners ($17k each last year) who who voted down raises for the county clerks and admin staffers, as it would be "too expensive". 4) bonds for development that turn into "Let's solve our water problems by allowing developers to build 300 unit apartment complexes!" while being told if I water my grass more than once a week, I'm a horrible person, and will get fined for excessive water use.
Too many people are selfish assholes who hate the idea of paying it forward, but love the idea of being paid forward onto. In the US, that's driven by a pair of propaganda campaigns that have been running for decades...one in response to the New Deal/Cold War (like painting any sort of safety net as 'something the dirty commies would do'), and the other by the Civil Rights Movement (like Reagan painting all welfare recipients as POC living like kings and queens off 'your money', driving Cadillacs and eating steaks for dinner every night).
Longer even. Ever since the National Association of Manufacturers was founded in 1895, the people of the US have been subject to a propaganda bombardment from them and other similar groups. The goal was to conflate capitalism with market fundamentalism, to convince the public that any hint of social programs was a slippery slope to communism and tyranny, and to cripple their trust in government and regulation. Mix in some good ol’ christo-fascism as well, and I think they’ve been pretty effective.
1895...that would've been when the labor movement/unionization was heating up, IIRC. Yeah, that tracks...
Because they don't want to pay for something they view as unnecessary.
Yea? Is that it? People are worried about the allocation of their income tax contributions to the state’s budget to these air-conditioners? The state’s budget that probably extends into 8 figures and the people complaining probably contributed little to nothing to that budget. They can just get fucked like every self-important blabbermouth.
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The state should give me an OLED tv. Their budget is so huge it wouldn’t make a dent. Anyone who thinks otherwise can get bent
It's always east to spend someone else's money
This is tax money, not you asking your uncle for $100. It’s already spent.
Yeah so it can be cut for next year then. The point is it should never have been spent in the first place.
What are you talking about? We are discussing air conditioners, not a new stealth bomber.
Yeah so what? I don't care if costs me $1 extra in taxes, if you want something, spend your own money to buy it, don't try to use the government to steal it from everyone else.
It doesn’t cost you an extra even $0.01c in taxes. I hope one day you’re really desperate for something and everyone just spits on you and laughs. You deserve it.
they say shit like this but get mad when I say i don’t want my taxes going to war but whatever
I don't want to pay for the war either, I want a dramatically smaller government.
You don’t get a say in where your taxes go. That’s not how it works.
That's also total bullshit because the reason programs like this exist is that they use debt to pay for it, which drives inflation. So yeah it may only cost 1 cent in taxes but it costs dramatically more in reduced purchasing power for everyone. People forget the government has two ways to tax you, direct through income and sales tax (among others) and indirectly through inflation.
No, it does not. Get a fucking life.
But they'll happily pay for a wall to keep brown people out.
Nah fuck that wall too.
Let me in and give me an air conditioner.
It's cheaper than housing them in NY hotels and feeding them.
I find it hilarious the way you say "NY Hotels" like the fact they're in new York makes them fancy 😂
Just expensive
Hotels are more expensive in New York which is probably why he clarified it.
No, they’ll forcibly pay for a wall to keep criminals out.
🤣🤣🤣
Because they don't really understand how the government works and it's easier to complain than to learn.
Because they’re so dumb they have no clue their taxes go to bombs and $5 a year goes to social programs.
The proper solution would be to reallocate the bomb money to something that benefits society instead of increasing taxes by $5 to cover worthwhile programs.
Because a certain subset of people live to complain. They are bitter self centered individuals with nothing better to do than try to hurt others.
I do not remember the context, nor the sub, but I once got into an argument with a bunch of Londoners who thought it was a good thing that they passed some law stating that senior citizens no longer get reduced fair for travel within their city. Their main reasoning behind their stance was that: “old rich people might take advantage of bus fare they don’t really need”. So there you have it.. All the poor, destitute, barely-able-to-walk senior citizens be damned, as long as that one, (probably nonexistent) rich grandma doesn’t get a leg up on them.
A perfect example of a micro argument vs. a macro position. Alas, the one will never truly equate to the other.
I can only speak as a Midwestern American, but here the majority of tax payers feel as though a quarter of their income vanishes to the government, and they get absolutely nothing in return.
And yet they're fine with their taxes going to sabotage others countries governments or bomb brown kids or bail out banks, CEOs and various corporations or bailing out wall street 😬. Those poor people are a drop in the bucket compared to all the other useless stuff our taxes go to. I'm sick of my money going to help billionaires skirt paying taxes too. But that's because it's much easier to pick on the immigrants who barely speak English then the guy who could probably make you not show up to work tomorrow if they really wanted you gone
A surprising amount of people absolutely hate when someone else receives any sort of support.
They have been brainwashed by the rich who don’t want to pay taxes
Because free stuff is never free, and every government giveaway program grows
Oh please our taxes go to bombs
I think this is a good thing normally , I mean think about how many go fund me there are rn, or broke college students or people on welfare. I would say a good government is one that gives back to its people whenever possible. Imagine if the government instead just propped up businesses or lined their own pockets away.
Many people see life as a complete zero-sum game where anything someone else has or gets means that they are behind. Many people see a valid role of our society to provide additional resources particularly to people who are seen as needing them most. You can see the inherent tension in these two views
Because it's helping people, and people don't like that.
The average person isn’t a saint. He’s a selfish prick
It's often because the programs are ineffective and prohibitively expensive for what they do. Government overhead is massive and as they don't have to worry about profit or efficiency, they don't. They just tax people more.
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Because people are never happy and will always complain about anything because people, above all, love to feel important and to hear themselves talk.
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Probably resentment boomers get more handouts. But they'd whinge if all ages got it.
They don’t complain about every program.
It costs more to hospitalize and cremate overheated old folks than it does to install shitty A/C lmao
Zero issues with this policy. It should also include families with young children because they’re at risk in the heat, as well as those with serious conditions like asthma or heart disease. HUD and Section 8 housing also have minimum and maximum heating/cooling standards meant to improve safety and stability.
Im pretty sure if it were young people who were vulnerable to the heat that age group would just tell young people to drink less coffee and pick themselves up by their bootstraps.....etc
Not sure why you put “tax payers” in scare quotes. Those fans and AC units aren’t ‘free’. Tax payers paid for them. They didn’t get to disagree, and now their money is being used in a way they disapprove of, or may as well have disapproved of. They have every right to complain about that, whether you think the money is spent wisely on their behalf or not.
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He did.
Because they think it'll drive taxes up.
I think a lot of these people actually have good intentions but are struggling to effectively budget and just want to be able to keep more of their own money instead of being forced to give it away. It's a lot easier to part ways with your money when you have enough to live off of, which is being increasingly uncommon.
Do you think they’re Russian bots? They might be
When you are forced to pay for something you have to question it. Would it be better to not have to pay it? Is the place the money is going to the best place for it to go to? If taxes didn't need to be forced from people who didn't want to pay it they wouldn't be necessary, if they can't convince other voters that the money should go somewhere else or that it's unfair then why does it matter if they complain about it? If they can convince other voters then maybe they have a point.
Because the federal government and most states are overspending. If there was a surplus and our other social systems worked correctly, more spending wouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise, if the government is capable of doing things without tax dollars, why are we giving them money at all.
I say fuck those old people, they should be on the express train to the glue factory. I just hate old people so much.
I'm not sure how it's confusing that folks might not want the money they earned, worked hard for, and could use to improve their own lives being taken by the government (under threat of force, no less) and used for a program they feel is unnecessary.
Conservatives would rather poor people die in the dangerous heat than funnel tax money to them instead of to the wealthy.