Tench Re.. guess it's all about welfare then. Social Security has become welfare for the elderly, financed on the backs of younger generations.
That I would agree with, and to correct it, we need to gradually shift SS to being treated as being financed by your contributions. The current systems allows one, to spend, and spend, and let someone else worry about tomorrow.
Minimum wage has become welfare for the working poor, financed on the backs of the employers.
That I disagree with. I am an employer, but the minimun wage laws actualy help me, in that it forces the my competition to pay at least a minimun wage. The advantage to that in a service industry, is that without the minimum wage, there could be a rush to hire immigrants etc, in order to lower prices, and I would have to follow suit, even though I think it is the wrong thing to do. Every employer has an obligation to pay his men a living wage, and the minimum wage is hardly more than that. I can see your point, in that certain people then, because of their handicaps, would be unhireable. But that should be addressed separately, with different programs, to address those handicaps. While one can look at minimum wage, as another transfer to the poor, the program is far better than a lot of the targeted programs, takes a big bite out of class warfare shrills, and really doesn't hurt most employers, and helps society, as better productivity, and better wages helps all of us, even the employers.
See a pattern here? No one wants to be responsible for seniors. No one wants to be responsible for the working poor. No one trusts the rich to be charitable. All of this responsibility is offloaded onto the government. Now we can be selfish and greedy without guilt, because we trust that government will fill that role. And when government fails to do so, as it has been for the past several decades, the solution is to try and fix the system, not people.
Very well put, and I agree. |
