Politics Discussion Thread September 2012

Multiheaded

The last thread didn't fare too badly, I think; let's make it a monthly tradition. (Me, I'm more interested in thinking about real-world policies or philosophies, actual and possible, rather than AI design or physics, and I suspect that many fine, non-mind-killed folks reading LW also are - but might be ashamed to admit it!)

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

To fit into one of these four categories, cash transfers would either need to go to everybody (which would be a huge program, e.g. $10,000 per American would require collecting 20% of GDP in taxes and then redistributing it),

Much of that money is already collected in taxes, and much of the rest would be an accounting gimmick with withholding taxes. Money disappears from one account and appears in another.

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.