Unnamed comments on Politics Discussion Thread September 2012 - Less Wrong
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Comments (195)
Around 70% of American safety net / welfare state spending goes to people who are elderly or disabled (including Social Security, Medicare, most of Medicaid, SSI, and chunks of various other programs). Keeping the amount of transfers to the elderly & disabled at their current level (either through the current programs or as cash), and giving everyone else in America $10,000 each, would require raising taxes by something like 10% of GDP (assuming that the rest of welfare spending was eliminated). I'd guess that plenty of people on the American left would support a proposal like that if it was on the table (although they'd probably prefer to keep some other components of the current welfare state as well, especially programs for children), but it is not currently a part of the mainstream political discussion and I do not think that Bill O'Reilly would respond favorably to it.