Good or Bad thing?
Welfare recipients should not have the right to vote
Posts
Total:
55
Great idea for psychopaths
Isn't that all voters? Anybody who cased a stimulus check has to be at 95% of the electorate.
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@oromagi
All of them that wanted to vote again would send back their stimulus checks. Or simply anyone partaking in welfare currently or during a voting cycle would not have the right to vote.
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@CoolApe
I'd amend that to a net welfare recipient minus taxes paid.
Why the hell does not making a certain amount of money lead to not being allowed to f****** vote?
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@CoolApe
I mean, taxation without representation has its counterpoint...representation without taxation.
representation without taxation.
Good point.
In other words, some people pay taxes and make our institutions possible and are not fairly represented. While, other individuals are taxed ultimately very little and contribute a small portion to the funding of our institutions, but they are large part of the population and represent numerous votes.
Another point, welfare breeds voting slaves to politicians.
Let's see the poor shouldn't be allowed to vote, for some reason people who have committed felony shouldn't be allowed to vote even though that has nothing to do with taxation, they want to make abortions criminal so women can't vote. Sounds like a white men are a little worried about who's voting.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Nobody should be exempt from contributing to society. Everyone should pay their fair share, including the poor.
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@Greyparrot
Why are you assuming if someone's on welfare they don't have a f****** job? Do you know how much many working poor there are in the United States? Do you realize that welfare could be just food stamps and that both mother and father can have a f****** job? No of course not cuz you assume if someone gets any kind of social welfare they sit on their ass all day and do nothing.
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@CoolApe
First off, how can anyone support democracy (rule by the people), and yet be against a large part of the people being allowed to vote? Secondly, I don't see any reason why the poor and welfare recipients are contributing little to society. In reality, most are doing hard work in multiple jobs, but their efforts are rewarded with low pay and next to no job security or benefits. To put it bluntly, hardworking people earn little not because they aren't contributing, but because their wages are determined by greedy capitalists. These syphoon the value of the poor's effort into their own pockets -- and themselves pay even less taxes, proportionally.
I, for my part, support a vision of democracy based on who policy AFFECTS. The state should be responsible to the people affected by state policy, aka, inhabitants.
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@Benjamin
First off, how can anyone support democracy (rule by the people), and yet be against a large part of the people being allowed to vote? Secondly, I don't see any reason why the poor and welfare recipients are contributing little to society. In reality, most are doing hard work in multiple jobs, but their efforts are rewarded with low pay and next to no job security or benefits. To put it bluntly, hardworking people earn little not because they aren't contributing, but because their wages are determined by greedy capitalists. These syphoon the value of the poor's effort into their own pockets -- and themselves pay even less taxes, proportionally.I, for my part, support a vision of democracy based on who policy AFFECTS. The state should be responsible to the people affected by state policy, aka, inhabitants.
well stated
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@CoolApe
Another point, welfare breeds voting slaves to politicians.
except for the fact that poor people are statistically LESS likely to vote
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@CoolApe
All of them that wanted to vote again would send back their stimulus checks. Or simply anyone partaking in welfare currently or during a voting cycle would not have the right to vote.
AND
stop using public roads
AND
stop calling public police
AND
stop using public utilities and public hospitals and public schools
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@CoolApe
In other words, some people pay taxes and make our institutions possible and are not fairly represented. While, other individuals are taxed ultimately very little and contribute a small portion to the funding of our institutions, but they are large part of the population and represent numerous votes.Another point, welfare breeds voting slaves to politicians.
What you're arguing here is that there should be a barrier to entry for representation in society based entirely on one's ability to provide for oneself without help from the government, and the purpose of said barrier is to more "fairly" represent the population that does contribute. I have a few problems with this.
One, this is a regressive standard for voting. By setting the barrier at a certain level of financial independence, you're effectively creating a standard that is no different from the "must be a land owner" standard that ended in 1828 and was fully abolished by the Supreme Court who abolished poll taxes in 1964. You're setting the bar lower than it was back then, but you're still taking a similar stance: that lacking economic independence makes a voter easy to manipulate. You aren't justifying that argument (saying that "welfare breeds voting slaves to politicians" is an assertion that lacks warrants and evidence), but more importantly, you aren't justifying that that was a better time or that better leaders were elected. Your argument has historical precedent that you could draw from, but it would almost universally hurt your case, so you don't.
Two, "fairly" is a poor use of words here. The fairest choice is to allow everyone to vote because the goal would be to avoid giving an advantage to any group. That is fair representation. What you're discussing is bias or preference - this group (tax-payers who do not receive welfare) is the only group that should have a say in elections. That is distinctly unfair since it strips people of their ability to affect who represents them in government. What you're really arguing here is that it's unfair for those who pay taxes and do not receive welfare to have their votes diluted such that their capacity to decide elections is reduced, preventing those who contribute to society meaningfully (in your estimation) from having the greatest voice in said society. By that logic, I'm not sure why you've decided to place the barrier here. Why not require a higher standard, affording an electoral vote only to those who create jobs in society? Hell, why not do away with a standard entirely and just scale the weight a person's vote to their contribution? If contribution to society is such an important standard that it should decide whether you get to pick who represents you, why should we not weigh the degree of contribution and give the rich far greater electoral sway?
Three, you're setting up a double standard. If receiving welfare and/or not paying federal/state taxes is sufficient reason to remove someone's basic right to vote, then why wouldn't we place the same standard on people receiving large subsidies or those who avoid paying taxes despite substantial incomes? That money could be used to pay for a lot more than even a great deal of people not taking welfare funds, but by your logic, that's fine so long as they're contributing to society. Everyone contributes to society to some degree. For poorer people, that may just mean buying from local businesses, paying rent and working an 8-5 job. So you're arbitrarily deciding that, because they receive some funds from the government, their contribution is insufficient. By contrast, the contributions of the rich, many of whose fortunes are buoyed by subsidies, are sufficient by your metric without considering the contribution vs. loss ratio. If contribution vs. loss matters on a small scale (individual people receiving welfare), it should matter on a large scale (rich people profiting off of subsidies) as well.
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@whiteflame
Everyone contributes to society to some degree. For poorer people, that may just mean buying from local businesses, paying rent and working an 8-5 job.
well stated
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@CoolApe
If you're going to go that far then why not include as a subsidy 'paying no federal income tax' and restrict lobbying too?
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@CoolApe
Then they shouldn't have to follow laws you pass on their behalf while they have no representation. Some 50 million people or so are on welfare. If you expect them, many of whom work in ther service industry, to fill up your car, serve you food, etc., to remain demure when they become second-class citizens, then I don't think we live in the same world. And what happens when strikes and work stoppages happen en masse? Do you think the Elon Musks' of the world will be nearly as wealthy without their legions of workers laboring on their behalf? What fair contribution does Jeff Bezos make to society anyway? He creates dirt-cheap jobs, the occupiers of whom are ineligible to vote (i.e., he creates slaves) and he accumulates wealth to influence how institutions are shaped in the US. Put simply, billionaires are just as much vote slaves as anyone else hoping to raise themselves out of poverty by voting for a pro-welfare politician. Moreover, the contributions of the rich to society only manifest if people are willing to work for them. In other words, the billions of dollars in tax revenue gleaned from businesses would dry up unless there were people poor and desperate enough, often on welfare, to work. And, when these workers are laid off (see Abbot Laboratories) those billionaire contributions to the national income start looking a lot more paltry.
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@blamonkey
Yes, actually every fifth American or 19% of the US population uses welfare. That accounts for 59 million welfare recipients that are part of at least one of the programs like SNAP.
I'm surprised by how many of you take it for granted the right to vote and to welfare as synonymous. Poor people voted all the time before large national social welfare programs even existed. I'm not counting everything before 1860, when mostly white land owning could vote in America even though before then many states were already working on substituting other qualifications other than land ownership for the right to vote.
An adequate fair approach is to say that anyone that pays their fair share of taxes ought have the right to make political decisions on what their institutions do. Of course, we don't want the rich to be only ones represented in government, but they are not adequately represented to amount of their contributions via taxes. They do significantly more for our institutions than anyone else for making them possible to exist. A fair share of tax is one that matches the exact amount for every individual, so that a person's vote is equal to exactly their contribution.
This proposal is simply a head tax. I'm not supporting taxing poor to death or even taxing the homeless. I think the only reasonable tax is small tax which wouldn't be too burdensome for anyone to pay.
The people that think we need large taxes are people that simply love large government. Government doesn't need to large at all or have all the unnecessary expenses like social security, healthcare, and education. It simply needs to pay for the defense of a country and its institutions that protect liberty and justice.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Why are you assuming if someone's on welfare they don't have a f****** job? Do you know how much many working poor there are in the United States? Do you realize that welfare could be just food stamps and that both mother and father can have a f****** job? No of course not cuz you assume if someone gets any kind of social welfare they sit on their ass all day and do nothing.
I don't assume they sit on their ass all day or assume they don't have job. It is you doing the assuming that the opposition only thinks this.
I also know that an individual doesn't need to be on welfare or social security for their entire life unless their sufficiently mentally or physically handicapped.
I assume that most people on welfare need help and once they don't need it that they will get off of it. Once they do, they will affectively be contributing their fair share of taxes to our institutions and they'll make political decisions on what they should do. Nobody should be on welfare for a long time and most people attempt to get off it if they wish too.
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@3RU7AL
Another point, welfare breeds voting slaves to politicians.except for the fact that poor people are statistically LESS likely to vote
I don't recall people on social security being that poor or old people not voting.
ANDstop using public roadsANDstop calling public policeANDstop using public utilities and public hospitals and public school
No. They simply wouldn't make political decisions on them. They wouldn't loose the access to them.
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@CoolApe
They do significantly more for our institutions than anyone else for making them possible to exist.
including union-busting
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@3RU7AL
Funny that the only thing you quoted in my text and didn't care to speech about anything else in it. I think strikes are completely legitimate if people don't damage property and owners or workers don't use government to coerce each other. Ye have little faith that a jury of your peers wouldn't punish people for criminal and wrong actions of corporations or individuals.
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@CoolApe
Then quit being an a****** about them being able to vote
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@CoolApe
you quoted in my text and didn't care to speech about anything else in it.
that was the specific claim i found interesting
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@CoolApe
wouldn't punish people for criminal and wrong actions of corporations
it seems pretty obvious they do not punish corporations for criminal action