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Comment by bob33212 | Hacker News Reader

I think the general public is open to the idea of taking care of folks who lost their jobs. The problem is drawing the line. If a taxi company goes bankrupt a lot of folks would expect the taxi drivers to start driving for Uber. If ESPN has to layoff some staff how long should they get help? Should they be expected to look for tangential jobs?

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If helping some people that don't need it gets us to fix the issue for ones in need, who cares if a few people get extra help? Somehow, the Republican party, which uses this argument all the time, is fine with helping millionaires get millions in tax breaks when trying to help buttress the economy, then why do we care if some individual gets unneccessary food stamps? We have never just tried safety nets, because the conversations is too worried about what abuse COULD happen. But it's only about abuse by the little guy; no one cares about the tax loop holes being abused by people that don't need it in the first place.

I totally agree. Some of the same people who roll they eyes at homeless people asking for change and fire employees for a couple weeks of low productivity are the same people who are now taking free money from the government without any guilt.

Sometimes I wish we could pick a US state and turn it into this vision. Social safety net for all, free healthcare for all, no loopholes for the rich. There are so many people who would like to see how this plays out. And more importantly, the expectation of the outcome varies WILDLY from smart person to smart person. Personally, I believe this state would be bankrupt in a matter of years, companies that produce tax revenue would move elsewhere, and moral hazard for those who don't feel like working would rear its head in ways not seen since the USSR.

Scandinavian countries didn't bankrupt. Rather the opposite.

Scandinavian countries are an interesting example. For example, they heavily tax their middle class, are quite business-friendly and have no required minimum wage. But as you are alluding to, they do get away with a high GDP per capita despite a higher tax burden. I think the Scandinavian-modeled state would not look like what pro-social safety net Americans would expect. But again, would love to see the experiment played out.

I'd love to see that experiment played out, but I suspect your "no loopholes for the rich" would cause them to flee to another state. States don't have the ability to tax anyone who is not a resident. On the federal level, this would not necessarily be so, since we can make it incredibly expensive for billionaires to renounce citizenship, by implementing a progressive "exit tax" that includes assets in the calculation.

Exactly. I think the country example would be similar to the state with billionaires leaving but more importantly, companies leaving due to the higher corporate tax rate that would be necessary to finance these social programs. Medtronic and Pfizer are good early examples of this phenomenon.

The general public, maybe, but elected representatives certainly are not, at least going by their actions. Take a look at the pathetic levels of benefits UI provides, and the limited duration. If we were providing people with a reasonable percentage of their former income, along with support in finding a new job, all for as long as it took for them to find other employment, then I wouldn't have a problem. There are some practical issues in implementing this, but this is essentially what a real unemployment insurance scheme should be. The system we have now unduly punishes people who lose their jobs, and serves only to keep workers firmly under the thumb of employers.

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