Most people have an inaccurate assessment of who is "on welfare."

October 20, 2015 9:56 AM

The mayor of Lewiston, Maine recently made headlines when he called for the state to publish the name and address of anyone receiving welfare benefits. The idea of publicly shaming people for receiving government assistance is not new. But when these stories do arise, we rarely stop to think about what we mean when we say someone is "on welfare." In 1983, Mimi Abramovitz tackled that question head-on in a paper provocatively titled "Everyone is on Welfare." Almost 20 years later, she updated the paper for the new millennium. (Also available on Researchgate).

The text above the fold was excerpted from America: A Welfare Nation by Livia Gershon.

posted by divined by radio (72 comments total)

Did you take the mortgage interest tax deduction last year? Congrats, you're a welfare queen.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:00 AM on October 20, 2015 [42 favorites]

Lewiston is a weird place. A fading mill town founded by immigrants which is being revived by mre immigrants, who are of course vilified by (some of) the descendants of the original immigrants.

Not to mention the current flap about the horrible racist signs that went up over the weekend, in opposition to the mayoral candidiacy of Bates grad and community organizer Ben Chin.

Full disclaimer, I worked with Ben many years ago
posted by anastasiav at 11:14 AM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

publish the name and address of anyone receiving welfare benefits.

In the UK, the Conservative party is cutting welfare, by which they mean tax credits, which comes as a surprise to some Tory voters (whoops!) even though it's obvious if you do the math.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:19 AM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Shouldn't they also publish the name of every business owner receiving tax abatements and other taxpayer-funded financial incentives? I mean...welfare by any other name, right?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2015 [17 favorites]

Publishing names and addresses NEVER works out well, because a very small but active portion of our population likes to send death threat letters to people they don't like. Making such a shame list is practically begging those crazies to send out happy fun notes.
posted by JHarris at 12:29 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm all for a comprehensive social safety net, but saying "everyone is on welfare" because you've defined everything the government does as "welfare"...
Isn't that begging the question in the purest form?

If you ask the average jane on the street to define "welfare", she'll come up with food stamps, public housing, maybe Medicare, but "transportation", "the environment", "tax-free enterprise zones"?
C'mon, that's stretching it.

Shaming someone who needs a hand (temporarily or permanently) is a vile thing, but the argument against it isn't "You took a tax break, so you're in the same boat".
posted by madajb at 12:34 PM on October 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

Well considering how much the opposition to welfare is based on an anti government 'doing things yourself without help stance,' then I imagine pointing out the help so many people *do* receive from the government that isn't arbitrarily defined as welfare is entirely relevant.

Only defining government help that usually goes to those people as welfare is the thing that's begging the question.
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:40 PM on October 20, 2015 [59 favorites]

Publishing names and addresses NEVER works out well, because a very small but active portion of our population likes to send death threat letters to people they don't like.

That wouldn't be Macdonald's idea of publishing names and addresses not working out well; that's actually his stated intent:

Macdonald also said that putting names and addresses out there might encourage neighbors to "make a call."

"Then we can go after all these people who are gaming the system," he said.

Asked if that might hurt other people receiving benefits, Macdonald said, "I don't care. Some people are going to get harmed, but if it's for the good of everybody, that's the way it is."

I've had a lot of years to get numbed to how much people hate those of us who are or have been on "benefits" or "entitlements," but this makes me feel a whole new level of disconnection from the human race. He really wants people to "go after" us? And he outright says he doesn't care about how (not if!) some people are going to get harmed? I get that this is just a dumb little show of dominance for him, but I still can't really believe the rest of us have to share a world with elected officials who govern this way.

If you ask the average jane on the street to define "welfare", she'll come up with food stamps, public housing, maybe Medicare, but "transportation", "the environment", "tax-free enterprise zones"? C'mon, that's stretching it.

If you ask the average person on the street to define "welfare," they're going to define it as "everything Those People get that I don't." Hence many citizens' total ignorance of corporate welfare and from whence comes the funding for the kind of basic infrastructure most of us invisibly benefit, not to mention "keep your government hands off my Medicare."
posted by divined by radio at 12:57 PM on October 20, 2015 [36 favorites]

I'm all for a comprehensive social safety net, but saying "everyone is on welfare" because you've defined everything the government does as "welfare"...
Isn't that begging the question in the purest form?

Fine, fine, fine; we're not all on welfare. Instead, we're all recipients of American Socialism.
posted by grubi at 1:17 PM on October 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

"Then we can go after all these people who are gaming the system," he said.

Which is to say everyone who utilizes loopholes in the tax code, right? Right?
posted by grubi at 1:19 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Only defining government help that usually goes to those people as welfare is the thing that's begging the question.

They're different types of transfers, though; one is an inducement for some policy end ("we want people to own houses, so we encourage it through the tax code") versus giving money to people because they can't support themselves.
posted by jpe at 1:21 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Did you take the mortgage interest tax deduction last year? Congrats, you're a welfare queen.

That's not really what we are talking about here. This MITC is for the middle-class, or at least for people who own their own home. This plan is about punishing poor people who probably don't own houses or condos.
posted by theorique at 1:24 PM on October 20, 2015

If you ask the average jane on the street to define "welfare", she'll come up with food stamps, public housing, maybe Medicare, but "transportation", "the environment", "tax-free enterprise zones"? C'mon, that's stretching it.

You don't even have to go that far, though. The federal government pays 28% of my mortgage interest for me. They pay 28% of my state taxes for me. That's welfare. How could it not be welfare? It's a check I get from the government. I get the check once a year instead of every month and it says "tax return" on it instead of "commie welfare." But that's because welfare that middle-class white folks get doesn't call itself welfare.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:25 PM on October 20, 2015 [20 favorites]

They pay 28% of my state taxes for me

Well to be fair you do have to earn enough to take the deductions. Hardly welfare by the common definition.
posted by Gungho at 2:00 PM on October 20, 2015

Mod note: A few comments deleted. "Welfare recipients are lazy druggies so this is good" isn't much of a contribution, let's just not even go there.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:12 PM on October 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

"In the UK, the Conservative party is cutting welfare, by which they mean tax credits, which comes as a surprise to some Tory voters (whoops!) even though it's obvious if you do the math. --posted by the man of twists and turns "

First they came for those lazy sods on the dole, and I voted for it.

Then they came for MY TAX CREDITS! RAAAAAAAAWR BOO HOO BLAH BLAH. (Not that I necessarily oppose the idea for working class families to have credits or whatever, but, fucking hypocrites).
posted by symbioid at 2:14 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

They're different types of transfers, though; one is an inducement for some policy end ("we want people to own houses, so we encourage it through the tax code") versus giving money to people because they can't support themselves.

There is some difference between helping people buy food because they would have a hard time doing so unaided and helping people buy houses because they would have a hard time doing so unaided, but it's not a big one. To my way of thinking, the mortgage deduction is a more egregious use of government funds because the person who receives it was going to have some kind of shelter anyway, so we are giving tax funds to people who are already doing okay. SNAP and WIC and things like that are going to people who might starve without it. It seems weird to me to argue that (not that you necessarily are, but people do) that mortgage deductions are somehow less offensive because that person can support themself. Those are exactly the people who don't need a break.

Well to be fair you do have to earn enough to take the deductions. Hardly welfare by the common definition.

But the difference between the welfare recipient and the tax break recipient in this case is mainly an illusion based on the time frame under consideration. Most people who receive what we commonly call "welfare" do so temporarily, and most of their lives are spent working productively and paying taxes. In the long view, most folks' welfare receipts are a partial return on the taxes they pay otherwise.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2015 [24 favorites]

"Instead, we're all recipients of American Socialism."

Don't tease me!
posted by Eideteker at 2:25 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did you take the mortgage interest tax deduction last year? Congrats, you're a welfare queen.

That's not really what we are talking about here. This MITC is for the middle-class, or at least for people who own their own home. This plan is about punishing poor people who probably don't own houses or condos.

What? The paper which is the subject of this post spends about 1/4 of the paper talking about tax expenditures on the middle and upper class, specifically including the MITC. The tax code is the same thing as government spending, it's the government making a specific policy choice NOT to tax some people and TO tax others, or to forego revenue that could otherwise be collected to achieve some policy goal. As the paper states, the government considers that to be "analogous to direct outlay programs".

The mortgage income credit is absolutely "welfare" for the middle class, just like accelerated depreciation or business development credits are "welfare" for corporations, and the estate tax carveout is "welfare" for the slight-but-not-incredibly rich. That's literally the entire subject of the post and the linked papers.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:04 PM on October 20, 2015 [13 favorites]

I get the check once a year instead of every month and it says "tax return" on it instead of "commie welfare." But that's because welfare that middle-class white folks get doesn't call itself welfare.

Your tax return is not welfare, it is a refund because you overpaid in taxes for the year. Usually this is because the amount taken out of your check does not take into account all the deductions and also because some people have more taken out either because they like it as a non-interest earning short-term savings vehicle or so they have a buffer because they expect a higher tax bill. You can change your W-4 so that less is taken out during the year and then you will have a smaller tax return.

The deductions you take may be welfare but your tax return is not. It is a function of how much you pay in during the year vs how much you actually owe.
posted by LizBoBiz at 3:14 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

It is a function of how much you pay in during the year vs how much you actually owe.

But these are arbitrarily defined. As an example, many people paying no income tax pay a high proportion of their income in sales taxes. Welfare could be seen, in their case, as a refund of what they have overpaid. But it never is, because the term "welfare" isn't fiscally meaningful, only politically.
posted by howfar at 3:53 PM on October 20, 2015 [11 favorites]

giving money to people because they can't support themselves.

Literally no one can support themselves. As MLK Jr. said, we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Humans are animals that travel in packs. When we are alone and have to support ourselves without help from others, we typically die.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:00 PM on October 20, 2015 [19 favorites]

Howfar, I think you are misunderstanding me. My quibble was with calling a tax return "welfare".

tax return = income taxes already paid - income taxes owed

To take your example, if someone knows they aren't going to owe any income taxes for the year, they can choose to have very little taxes taken out of their paycheck by their employer. This would result in them having a very small refund. This doesn't mean they receive less welfare than someone else who also does not owe any federal income taxes but does receive a tax return.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:15 PM on October 20, 2015

"I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No." -Craig T. Nelson

Let's be honest here. The point of this stuff, publishing these names or putting people through drug testing, is just to make it so unpleasant to get assistance that people who need help won't get it. We shouldn't even pretend that it has any other purpose, to do so is just playing their game.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:22 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Your tax return is not welfare, it is a refund because you overpaid in taxes for the year.

Calling it a tax return doesn't magically turn paying some of my housing costs for me into not welfare.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:24 PM on October 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

Or, if you'd rather, a program that helps people pay their housing costs is welfare. Whether they call the check you get a Welfare Commie Housing Subsidy Check for Losers or a Tax Return is immaterial; the economic effect is exactly the same.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:26 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Howfar, I think you are misunderstanding me. My quibble was with calling a tax return "welfare".

You are probably right, but without aiming any criticism at you personally, I think that's because the idea of "welfare" as distinct from any other government spending of the overall tax take is an inherently misleading one. From a fiscal perspective, the government levies a range of taxes on a range of activities, and then spends that money in a variety of ways, including direct payments to citizens who meet various criteria. Calling a particular group of payments "welfare" is not, to my mind, fiscally meaningful. But it is so politically dominant a notion that it feels like it should mean something, and so we end up having conversations like this about whether a particular payment is or is not "welfare". Better to just give up the whole thing and think of payments in terms of their fiscal and economic effects, rather than their moral character.
posted by howfar at 4:28 PM on October 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

I get what you are saying, ROU, but the tax return is not the welfare part. The tax deductions are the welfare. You and I could have the same deductions (including help paying for housing costs) and pay the same amount in taxes but if I have less taxes taken from each paycheck during the year my tax return will be less than yours. That does not mean I received less welfare than you.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:31 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

this conversation is only possible because American Republicans successfully duped their victims into thinking that "welfare" means "giving things to people weaker than me who I therefore loathe," rather than referring (as previously had been the case) to measures to ensure the welfare of all people.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:38 PM on October 20, 2015 [11 favorites]

You are probably right, but without aiming any criticism at you personally, I think that's because the idea of "welfare" as distinct from any other government spending of the overall tax take is an inherently misleading one.

this conversation is only possible because American Republicans successfully duped their victims into thinking that "welfare" means "giving things to people weaker than me who I therefore loathe," rather than referring (as previously had been the case) to measures to ensure the welfare of all people.

Relabeling all social spending as "welfare", a term that's long since been misappropriated into a right wing pejorative by ideological forces opposed to all such spending is really pretty insidious, and at this point even using the term acknowledges and validates that toxic framework, the word is past redemption. Spending is spending, whether the recipient "deserves" it or not.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:41 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

let's call it welfare. Let's be big old socialists giving welfare to everyone. One positive side effect of the American Republican attack on the English language is that now that people are waking up to what the Republican Party is, we're now primed to support things when they're described in language that the Republican Party hates.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:43 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't see why the word welfare is a hill worth dying on. This "described in a language" thing implies that voters will listen past the part where their lizard brain sees the image of Ronald Reagan's apocryphal welfare queen. They won't. Just like the ACA is only popular when you give people a nineteen-part questionnaire describing its provisions, I don't see how the path to making redistributive programs more generous is furthered by clinging to the word "welfare."
posted by tonycpsu at 4:53 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

To clarify: I do want to have those lengthier conversations and inform people what social democracy means, how farm subsidies and the mortgage interest deduction are also redistributive in nature, etc... But when it comes to rhetorical pitches to get more liberals elected, let Reagan (and Clinton for that matter) have their scalp.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:55 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

nope! I am sufficiently insane to think that the Republicans have made the specific terms they don't like more popular. not using the word "welfare" would be a missed opportunity. Welfare welfare welfare. Frankly, the one usage of "welfare" that I'd shy away from is in the phrase "corporate welfare," because, like Republican rhetoric, it perversely presents welfare as a bad thing.

the terms they've marked for destruction are the terms we will get the most mileage out of, specifically because they've marked them for destruction.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:16 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Those who have concluded that the point of the story is ...'only arguing about different names for the same thing,' are asked to reread the story and explain what they mean by (1) 'only' and (2) 'the same thing.'
posted by klarck at 5:18 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't say insane, YCTAB, I would just say at odds with the available evidence.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:19 PM on October 20, 2015

yeah, the way I square that circle is to say that people who don't pay attention to politics only think of those terms as bad because no one with the sort of mainstream platform that the apoliticized notice has actually championed those terms in decades. They seriously don't know that it's alright to think of welfare as good, or even that it's possible to think of welfare as good.

It's sort of an "if you build it (or say it) they will come" argument.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:27 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

OK, so blind faith, then. Seems like a shitty gamble to me when peoples' actual welfare is at stake.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:38 PM on October 20, 2015

Well, feel free to focus group it if you've got time and resources.

I must note, though, that it's also a leap of faith to find some other word and then hope that one isn't attacked. The euphemism game, where you respond to an attack on a concept through an attack on a word by changing the word and hoping people don't notice, often fails badly. as you know, often it turns into a euphemism treadmill, where word after word after word is used to describe the concept under attack, and each word in turn comes under attack when it's used. The only thing that can stop that is if people with meaningful platforms actually turn around and defend the concept by proudly using the words. we need to reach an "Alright then, I'll go to hell!" moment with both the word "welfare" and the wonderful concept it describes

Yeah, it's a risk. But nothing in this world isn't a risk.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:53 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Safety net" is just fine. They can't attack it very easily because, unlike "welfare", which people primarily associate with TANF, "safety net" implicitly includes things like Social Security and unemployment insurance that enjoy broader support.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:05 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

OK, so blind faith, then.

No, it's a conscious decision to not let the Right redefine our common language for us and push the damn Overton window to further reflect their twisted dog-eat-dog Weltanschauung. It's the estate tax, not the death tax. Entitlement is not a bad word and neither is welfare.

We won't always win the battle, but fighting the good fight for what these words and concepts used to mean is worth it. After all, Cons are always telling us that if it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, it should be good enough for us, no?
posted by longdaysjourney at 6:13 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

We won't always win the battle, but fighting the good fight for what these words and concepts used to mean is worth it

Again, real lives at stake here, so I'm not interested in fighting for words. We're not running out of words.

The Overton window is a very useful concept that's nonetheless been butchered beyond recognition into some all-powerful transformative force. Yes, language can subtly change peoples' feelings on issues, which is something that Frank Luntz made a career out of, but when a word has been so successfully demonized, it may not be worth devoting resources to save it. Should liberals call conservatives on their Orwellian bullshit? Yes. Should liberals prioritize defending/reclaiming words when actual policy goals could be threatened? No.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:24 PM on October 20, 2015

Again, I strongly disagree with you. Words have shared meaning and letting that meaning be debased by Conservatives to further their political goals and to realize their vision, puts our society and the people who are the members of our society at risk. Not fighting rightwing Newspeak like this wherever we see it is extremely bad politics, which will be realized in extremely bad policy (as I think we've already seen with the estate tax/death tax fiasco, for one).
posted by longdaysjourney at 6:34 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

To be fair, I could not possibly care less about what liberals say or do. Liberalism is a bankrupt ideology.

Yes, this is the level of linguistic unreasonableness you're dealing with here. And yes, I do believe that in certain contexts it's important to insist on using the right language. Going off of anecdata, when my conservative-identifying friends, acquaintances, and relatives talk about why they don't like the Democrats, typically their substantive issues with the Democratic Party are issues with the liberalism of the party — the party's support for market rule and their concomitant tendency to cozy up to large business-owners. Many of these people are stunningly receptive to socialist rhetoric, on the rare occasions that they hear it. I know two in particular who AFAIK have never voted for a Democrat, but who are full-throated supporters of their Socialist city council member, Kshama Sawant.

Yes, it's just anecdata, and yes, I expect that we'll never see eye-to-eye here.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:37 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

It is strange and kind of awful that I, as a middle class person, probably receive significantly more welfare (or subsidies, if you prefer) than do the actual poor people I know. But mine come in the form of deductions and subsidized services, rather than food stamps and Section Eight vouchers, so I avoid the stigma.

If you considered what I have received over my lifetime, including federal grants and subsidized loans for college and federal fellowships in graduate school, I undoubtedly am a much larger recipient than an average poor person. And yet somehow I am lifting myself by my own bootstraps?
posted by Dip Flash at 7:41 PM on October 20, 2015 [9 favorites]

To be fair, I could not possibly care less about what liberals say or do. Liberalism is a bankrupt ideology.

"Liberalism" without any other qualifiers means different things to different people. If you're declaring anything other than pure socialism as "bankrupt" then good luck with your endeavors, but it seems to me that market capitalism isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so I'd rather devote effort to strongly regulating it and making it accountable to the people through government than to policing what words people use when they talk about it and counting on voters who for the most part have for many decades shown no interest in informing themselves on the issues to suddenly awaken as fully-formed socialists.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:23 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

See also The Submerged State and The Rise of the Military Welfare State.

Also I came here to post Craig T. Nelson's unique insight into this question but found that LastOfHisKind beat me to it.
posted by dhens at 11:34 PM on October 20, 2015

Welfare for the rich isn't just a made up politicism. It is actually codified into law in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. A provision of the law requires the Congressional Budget Office each year to list and report "Tax Expenditures" built into the tax code for individuals (not corporations). This is tax money spent on benefits for individuals in the form of tax deductions and credits for special interests which is treated the same as tax expenditures for what are traditionally called welfare distributions. These subsidies are by law called "tax expenditures."

The Distribution of Major Tax Expenditures in the Individual Income Tax System [PDF]

The biggest Tax Expenditures, in order:

1. Employee health insurance exemption, $260 billion per year.
Normally, employees are taxed on all compensation they receive, whether it is cash, cars or housing. The one exception is compensation in the form of health insurance premiums. The typical employment health insurance premium is $6000 for individuals and $16,000 for families. In the 25% tax bracket, this amounts to an annual government subsidy of $1,500 to $4000 plus more for exempted payroll taxes. Unlike Obamacare, the employee health insurance subsidy is "reverse" means tested. The higher your means and tax rate, the bigger your subsidy.

2. Pension plan deductions, $140 billion per year.
The government subsidizes contributions to pensions, 401(k) plans and IRAs. The more money you can save, the bigger your government subsidy. Poor people pay richer people to save.

3. Preferential rates on capital gains and dividends, $85 billion per year.
Capital gains and dividends are taxed at lower rates than wage income. This is how Warren Buffett famously pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

4. State and local tax deduction, $89 billion per year.
The federal government subsidizes the tax bill for property owners. The bigger your house and car, the bigger your subsidy.

5. Mortgage interest deduction, $70 billion per year.
The government subsidizes housing for people fortunate enough to afford a home. People without homes help pay for people with homes.

6. Capital gains exclusion on inherited investments, $50 billion per year.
Investment gains that were untaxed during the deceased' lifetime, pass on to heirs also untaxed (known as stepped up basis). Assets can be passed from generation to generation untaxed.

7. Charity deductions, $40 billion per year.
More than half of charitable deductions go to religious organizations, not welfare charities.

The total tax expenditures for these subsidies to just individuals (not counting corporations) amounts to about $900 billion per year, which is more than twice this year's budget deficit.

Compare that to the total for what is traditionally called welfare payments to the poor (Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, TANF, SSI, housing vouchers) which is only about $220 billion per year, less than a fourth that paid to individuals as tax expenditures. When you hear Republicans talk about too much spending, you never hear about the real tax expenditures to individuals.
posted by JackFlash at 11:43 PM on October 20, 2015 [17 favorites]

Welfare's Last Stand

The military welfare state is hidden in plain sight, its welfare function camouflaged by its war-making auspices. Only the richest Americans could hope to access a more systematic welfare network. Military social welfare features a web of near-universal coverage for soldiers and their families – housing, healthcare, childcare, family counselling, legal assistance, education benefits, and more. The programmes constitute a multi-billion-dollar-per-year safety net, at times accounting for nearly 50 per cent of the Department of Defense budget (DoD). Their real costs spread over several divisions of the defence budget creating a system so vast that the DoD acknowledged it could not accurately reckon its total expense.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:43 PM on October 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

As JackFlash correctly points out, the largest share of welfare goes to billion dollar corporations and the weathy, rather than low income folks.
posted by Yosemite Sam at 5:37 AM on October 21, 2015

Of the few people I've known who have cheated the welfare system, almost all are Republicans who think it's their due because "everyone else is cheating the system". Thanks Ayn Rand!
posted by SassHat at 6:16 AM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

Additionally, one of my favorite professors said in a communications class something to the effect of: What if we called warfare "Murderfare" and welfare "Lifecare", would people feel differently about it?
posted by SassHat at 6:22 AM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Playing devils advocate here, why are typical middle-class tax deductions such as mortgage interest or workplace health insurance considered subsidies, rather than just "the government leaving citizens alone"? ("leaving alone" in a classical liberal sense)

As in, why don't we frame it as "we want to encourage behavior X by productive citizens, therefore we will refrain from taxation of X and let those citizens keep their money". Or, in other words, doing behavior which the government deems pro-social earns citizens "getting left alone" points.
posted by theorique at 9:23 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Playing devils advocate here

How about no
posted by zombieflanders at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

Tax expenditures aren't "leaving citizens alone." There are specific methods of transferring money from one favored citizen to another citizen, the same as if you wrote them a welfare check. The person who doesn't own a home doesn't get a subsidy check. In fact, they write a tax check that gets transferred to the home owner. The person who doesn't get their health insurance through their employer but has to buy their own writes a tax check that gets transferred to the person who has employer health insurance. How is that "leaving citizens alone." It is a redistribution of income from one favored group to another group. It's just that it is redistribution in a way that isn't generally called "welfare" because the truth would be inconvenient.
posted by JackFlash at 9:36 AM on October 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

5. Mortgage interest deduction, $70 billion per year.
The government subsidizes housing for people fortunate enough to afford a home. People without homes help pay for people with homes.

In the US depending on family size the first 10,000. to 13,000 of income are not taxed. In fact most people earning that qualify for "earned Income" tax benefits since they phase out at between 8k and 13k of income.People who qualify pay no taxes and receive a supplement EITC of between $500.00 and $3500.00. This too is not generally considered "welfare". In order for a Mortgage payer to receive $3500 in deductions he would have to pay about 12 to 15 thousand in interest alone.
posted by Gungho at 11:10 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

The person who doesn't own a home doesn't get a subsidy check. In fact, they write a tax check that gets transferred to the home owner.

There are a few states that try to level the playing field a bit with property tax rebates for renters (who are, of course, paying these taxes indirectly via rent) but that's only a few states, it only applies to state and local taxes, not federal, and is nothing like as lucrative as the mortgage interest deduction or other subsidies for homeowners.

The person who doesn't get their health insurance through their employer but has to buy their own writes a tax check that gets transferred to the person who has employer health insurance.

And they may well be paying for health insurance on their own on top of that, without that sweet, sweet pre-tax payroll deduction method of payment. The ACA subsidies aren't substantial and they're a hassle to adjust if your income changes over the course of a year (and people without employment that offers insurance are more likely to have unexpected income changes.)

We do have a societal interest in keeping the lives of middle- and upper-income people stable through the tax code or whatever other means we feel are useful. We could use a lot more help on the lower end to help everyone else achieve stable lives, too.
posted by asperity at 11:21 AM on October 21, 2015

People who qualify pay no taxes

Ah, yes, the trusty old "taxes = income taxes" gambit. Back here on Earth, everyone pays taxes, and the total effective tax rates have gotten much less progressive over time. Focusing on federal income taxes only and ignoring the regressive payroll / sales taxes is a tactic free marketeers try all the time, but I would hope at this point we can do better than that here.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:24 AM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

People who qualify pay no taxes and receive a supplement EITC of between $500.00 and $3500.00. This too is not generally considered "welfare".

The Earned Income Tax Credit absolutely is considered traditional welfare by everyone. I don't know where you got the idea that it wasn't. The mortgage deduction, which many people obstinately refuse to believe is welfare on the other hand, is a special subsidy available only to homeowners which is above and beyond the standard deduction available to everyone. The bigger your house and mortgage, the bigger your subsidy.

The U.S is one of the few countries in the world that has a mortgage interest deduction. It is an oddity that the rest of the world thinks peculiar. Canada doesn't. The UK doesn't. France doesn't. Germany doesn't. And all of these countries have a robust housing market and high levels of family ownership.

The mortgage interest deduction is a market distortion pushed by the residential housing and finance industries.
posted by JackFlash at 11:32 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

The mortgage interest deduction is a market distortion pushed by the residential housing and finance industries.

And, to be fair, by a federal government that has traditionally seen home ownership as a goal that should be furthered using economic incentives.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:38 AM on October 21, 2015

Ah, yes, the trusty old "taxes = income taxes" gambit.

I see what you mean, but it's still the case that it's not poor people paying for rich people's houses, because poor people aren't putting into the particular pool that those subsidies are implicitly drawn from. Middle-class people are paying for rich people's houses.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:46 AM on October 21, 2015

Don't forget sales taxes, which apply to everyone and are extremely regressive.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:47 AM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

And, to be fair, by a federal government that has traditionally seen home ownership as a goal that should be furthered using economic incentives.

Sure, that's the excuse they tell you, but it is really for the benefit of the housing and finance industries in response to intensive corporate lobbying. Other countries do a fine job of home ownership without subsidies.
posted by JackFlash at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I see what you mean, but it's still the case that it's not poor people paying for rich people's houses, because poor people aren't putting into the particular pool that those subsidies are implicitly drawn from.

See, I could have sworn that money was fungible.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Sure, that's the excuse they tell you, but it is really for the benefit of the housing and finance industries in response to intensive corporate lobbying. Other countries do a fine job of home ownership without subsidies.

Other things being equal, it tends to shift the balance of the individual own-vs-rent decision toward the "own" side of the spectrum. So it also yields benefits to individuals who pay their mortgage interest in pre-tax dollars. It's not only a benefit to large corporate interests, as any US-based homeowner can tell you.
posted by theorique at 12:55 PM on October 21, 2015

“The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor,” Eduardo Porter,The New York Times, 20 October 2015
posted by ob1quixote at 1:17 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

The mortgage deduction also raises the price of homes so the net benefit to most middle class homeowners is questionable, but there is no question it is distortionary and increases inequality.

If you are a middle class homeowner with a small home and a small mortgage, you may get nearly zero subsidy above the standard deduction available to everyone. If you have a million dollar home you may get $20,000 of government subsidy for your McMansion. It is a welfare benefit that increases inequality. The incentive skews the market towards more expensive homes. This is good for home builders and finance companies. It's not so good for the middle class.
posted by JackFlash at 1:27 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

The incentive skews the market towards more expensive homes.

According to the IRS there is a Million dollar limit. Granted there aren't a whole ton of multi-million dollar homes, but I can see a few from my office at work...

Fully qualified deductions: 2.Mortgages you took out after October 13, 1987, to buy, build, or improve your home (called home acquisition debt), but only if throughout 2014 these mortgages plus any grandfathered debt totaled $1 million or less ($500,000 or less if married filing separately).
posted by Gungho at 8:06 AM on October 22, 2015

The mortgage limit means that only the first million dollars of mortgage count. So even multi-million dollar mortgages get the annual $10,000 to $20,000 subsidy. On top of that they can add $100,000 of home equity loan debt.
posted by JackFlash at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

Actual experience, from the richest country in the world to some of the poorest places on the planet, suggests that cash assistance can be of enormous help for the poor. And freeing them from what President Ronald Reagan memorably termed the “spider’s web of dependency” — also known as forcing the poor to swim or sink — is not the cure-all for social ills its supporters claim.

One billion people in developing countries participate in a social safety net. At least one type of unconditional cash assistance is used in 119 countries. In 52 other countries, cash transfers are conditioned on relatively benign requirements like parents’ enrolling their children in school.

Abhijit Banerjee, a director of the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, released a paper with three colleagues last week that carefully assessed the effects of seven cash-transfer programs in Mexico, Morocco, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Indonesia. It found “no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work.”

A World Bank report from 2014 examined cash assistance programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and found, contrary to popular stereotype, the money was not typically squandered on things like alcohol and tobacco.

Still, Professor Banerjee observed, in many countries, “we encounter the idea that handouts will make people lazy.”

Professor Banerjee suggests the spread of welfare aversion around the world might be an American confection. “Many governments have economic advisers with degrees from the United States who share the same ideology,” he said. “Ideology is much more pervasive than the facts.”

What is most perplexing is that the United States’ own experience with both welfare and its “reform” does not really support the charges.
posted by infini at 10:26 AM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

According to the IRS there is a Million dollar limit. Granted there aren't a whole ton of multi-million dollar homes, but I can see a few from my office at work...

Wait, is this an attempt to refute the notion that the deduction skews things toward the wealthy? By noting that some houses over the $1,000,000 limit exist?
posted by tonycpsu at 11:10 AM on October 22, 2015

“Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor,” Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 21 October 2015
posted by ob1quixote at 11:49 PM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]