Government Wealth Redistribution

No worries on the time as you were within the limits. Now on to the debate... I assume that this (your statement in the abortion debate that brought about my debate) is all that is required to justify the goodwill portion of the argument: "I'd much rather charge everyone to make sure people get the care they need than depend on people's goodwill. And for that matter, in hard times when people need help most, wouldn't people stop donating in order to keep their own families afloat? And wouldn't that essentially strand the poor?" You are quite correct that no one will punish you for not donating to the Salvation Army. However, why are you positing that statement as being inherently undesirable? Is it morally righteous to punish someone for doing as they please with money they earn? When did the welfare of the poor become the obligation of those with wealth? There is a fine line separation here between the natural instinct of charity (which is founded on individual choice) and that of an obligation? "What makes you so sure that the only reason people don't donate to charity is because of taxes?" I hardly implied that as the sole rationale. I merely pointed out that when you remove a certain portion of wealth from an individual, they will have to make choices on how to use that, now reduced, wealth. As such, to expect the same level of charity from the same individual who now has less wealth is, I think obviously, ridiculous. "New Orleans is still literally rotting, and people need money almost as much as they did right after the hurricane. However, no one donates any more, because we've essentially forgotten about it." I would hardly attest the state of New Orleans to the private charity of Americans, but rather to the incompetence of their government. The same fools that did not maintain levees in a city below sea level were placed in charge of its reconstruction. Did you expect a better result? "Again, people in power may not like to help people, but they are legally obligated to." A legal obligation to do something is hardly a moral justification. "And since when is helping the poor not ‘public good', anyway? Besides, a lot of the things you want to get rid of do benefit you anyway. Social security? Medicare?" A public good is defined as the marginal cost equaling zero, therefore the price is zero. You can hardly place welfare or any other "help to the poor" as a public good precisely because the addition of one more poor person increases the cost by a nonzero amount. On Social Security, there is a question as to whether or not it will actually be financially viable when I retire (entirely dependent on how the economy performs into the unforeseeable future)and Medicare is in a questionable position given the rising cost of health care despite (most likely because of) the growing interference of the government over the last 35 years. " "If those families will not provide charity because of their financial situation, how does that imply taking their money would be better? Taking the money they cannot afford to give would make the situation much worse." Simple. Taxes are levied on everyone.If you get rid of taxes, then only the people who want to donate will. Therefore, less people will be giving money to the poor." No, it is not that simple because you simply dodged the issue. If you tax the same person who cannot afford to give charity because of their financial situation then you will do them harm. Besides, your line of reasoning does not imply that less money will be given in charity. If, for the only reason, that every time the government has lowered taxes they have received more revenue (there is obviously a point at which this will no longer be true, but for the tax cuts of the 20th century this holds true). "Not to mention the fact that you are also taxing the rich, and regardless of the financial situation of the country there are always rich people to be taxed. Even during the great depression, there was a booming upper class." No, just read about the Wiemar Republic and you can come across a financial situation that destroyed the rich and poor alike. Also, the "booming" upper class is a farce. The wealth of the country dropped considerably during the Great Depression. Those who were wealthy before the Great Depression (who were out of the stock market by the crash, and had subsequently protected there wealth in certain banks or commodities) maintained there "growing" wealth largely because of the great deflation experienced at that time due to certain Federal Reserve policies. "So, you people seem to have a lot of problems with taxing individuals. But couldn't you lower taxes on individuals and raise them on corporations, who, at the moment, give the country practically nothing? What do you have against that?" I have a problem with the income tax, given the self incrimination it requires. Besides, there are taxes you can raise that do not require the ridiculous tax code we currently have, but all this is off topic. "For that matter, without the government organizing things, how are you going to spend those donations? The government, if nothing else, keeps things well organized. If you created groups to sort out donations and give them to the right people you'd need a lot of volunteers. And people tend to have lives, so you're likely not going to get that many people who want to work for free." For one, the problem of organization of charity has been solved already...that should be obvious as there already exist many private charities (and they have existed for quite some time). The government is hardly a model of efficiency. In fact, that is the main reason to keep the government out of anything that can be handled by market forces. If anything, the government effectively organizes inefficiency. The Salvation Army seems to have a lot of volunteers, and you don't actually need volunteers as Goodwill and Arc Thrift Stores demonstrate everyday. "And here's my favorite point. In how many situations have these libertarian ideals worked? How many countries out there have implemented this successfully? Most of the other developed countries out there are downright socialist compared to us. I mean, libertarian ideas work great in theory, but hey, so did communism." Wow! I am really disappointed. The Constitution is practically a model of a libertarian government. It worked quite well, for those it applied to, until people of your ideological bent gained power. I would safely bet everything I have that if we were to follow the original interpretation (now that we have established the equal rights of all individuals) that our country would be in an enviable position compared to now. The fact remains that liberty is the exception and not the rule to human existence. This is hardly a damnation of its efficacy. By the way, communism was never a great theoretical idea. Marx completely mistook where valuation comes from and so founded much of his theory on a fallacy.