> It isn't easier or fairer to write everyone a check, because quite a lot of people don't need any help.
Why not? If you give everyone the same subsidy and adjust taxes accordingly, then the welfare cliff disappears, a marginal dollar of income is genuinely valuable, and a screwup in how someone’s need is measured doesn’t matter so much. As an added bonus, wealthier and more influential people might use more social benefits and thus apply pressure to make them better.
> Taxing people who don't have kids to pay for people who can afford to pay their kids' tuition seems wrong all around.
Why not? Healthy, well educated are a massive, and even essential, benefit to society. If nothing else, they’re the future taxpayers! Why, exactly, should their parents be the ones to bear almost all of the cost of producing them?
>Why not? If you give everyone the same subsidy and adjust taxes accordingly, then the welfare cliff disappears, a marginal dollar of income is genuinely valuable, and a screwup in how someone’s need is measured doesn’t matter so much. As an added bonus, wealthier and more influential people might use more social benefits and thus apply pressure to make them better.
There's no such thing as a perfect calculation for this. There is essentially no welfare cliff now. What you're proposing is to tax "wealthy" people so much that they have no choice but to lean on social benefits, and expect them to be thankful for the opportunity to participate in the welfare system. You say it very optimistically but it is actually an awful thing.
>Why not? Healthy, well educated are a massive, and even essential, benefit to society. If nothing else, they’re the future taxpayers! Why, exactly, should their parents be the ones to bear almost all of the cost of producing them?
Parents of kids get most of the benefits of having those kids. That's why they bear the cost of it. I can't believe I have to explain this... Other people's kids will not help me with my bills or tend to me when I'm sick. If they are somehow taxed to pay for my existence, I expect them to avoid that as much as possible. My own kids on the other hand might actually care about me, even with all the moral decline we have seen in out culture.
Why not? If you give everyone the same subsidy and adjust taxes accordingly, then the welfare cliff disappears, a marginal dollar of income is genuinely valuable, and a screwup in how someone’s need is measured doesn’t matter so much. As an added bonus, wealthier and more influential people might use more social benefits and thus apply pressure to make them better.
> Taxing people who don't have kids to pay for people who can afford to pay their kids' tuition seems wrong all around.
Why not? Healthy, well educated are a massive, and even essential, benefit to society. If nothing else, they’re the future taxpayers! Why, exactly, should their parents be the ones to bear almost all of the cost of producing them?