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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Usually the government is fully aware of the risks of fraud.

But that the cost of not implementing the program is far worse.

Which in the case of PPP would've meant a lot of businesses failing and workers without a job.

And that's worse than poor people not being able to eat how? It's the same excuse trotted out time and again, but the only beneficiaries that actually exist are people anyway, so it makes no sense (unless you think rich people are more deserving than poor people.)

When pressed, most of the people who support strict means testing for welfare will eventually admit that it's not about saving the government money, and that they support it even if it ends up costing taxpayers on net (which it almost always does). They're pretty clear that this is about punishing indigence.

>They're pretty clear that this is about punishing indigence.

But why? Are they doing so so they want to oppress poor people? Or are they doing so to make the welfare experience shitty so people are incentivized to seek normal employment?

For many politicians and voters, mere cruelty is the entire point[1] of lawmaking. The government's purpose is to hurt one's opponents, which is more important than helping... anyone.

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...

> Or are they doing so to make the welfare experience shitty so people are incentivized to seek normal employment?

Yes, and to foment general distaste and dislike towards the welfare system, with the ultimate goal of ending the program. Related to "starve the beast" policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

> And that's worse than poor people not being able to eat how?

Food programs are pretty widely supported. People don't want poor people not being able to eat, they want poor people not being able to drink alcohol/do drugs/play videogames/watch movies/..., the things they see as a fun indulgence.

That is, people are willing to make food assistance programs wildly cost-inefficient, based on the imaginary premise that poor people don't know how to prioritize, budget, or control their impulses.

And yet businesses still laid off people, people lost their job, homes and struggled to feed themselves.

propping up failed businesses is preventing the capitalism/the market from working. Why save for a rainy day or ensure your business can weather a storm when you can just do stock buybacks abs shovel money to the shareholders and the Goverment will prop you up?

It’s better to just ensure people’s needs are taken care of then this weird “trickle down middleman” plan that literally never works.

> And yet businesses still laid off people, people lost their job, homes and struggled to feed themselves.

The fact that people got laid off regardless shouldn't be an indictment of the program. We should instead compare to the counterfactual where the PPP program hasn't bee implemented.

i mean it sure seems like it is? if the intent was to prop up businesses that did not plan for a black swan event so people could keep their jobs.

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