Government Wealth Redistribution

We take the Constitution out of context to justify things all the time. In fact, the founding fathers knew that they couldn't think of everything that could conceivably happen in the future, so they wrote in an over-arching sort of way that allowed for new developments. It's meant to be taken out of context. "you have a weak argument. The rich are part of everyone too should I use that as a justification for corporate welfare?" Not at all. It's a simple enough concept. The poor need money, and the rich have enough money to take care of themselves. Besides, helping the poor benefits everyone. When people are destitute, they get desperate. And when people are desperate, crime rates skyrocket. You're a whole lot more willing to mug someone if you know the money they're carrying may keep your family from starving this week. You get less drug dealers, dogfighters and prostitutes if you have help for the poor, because, obviously, it takes a desperate person to do any of those things. Having less of a chance of getting shot for the contents of your wallet is good for everyone and is therefore public good. Here's a quote from Federalist 30: "Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety. How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth?…How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good?" Undertaking or executing liberal or enlarged plans of public good? This makes a decent case for welfare, and it's taken right out of the document you cited to dispute it. "Which ultimately destroys the charity involved which was my point. You cannot on a moral ground demand wealth to "help" the poor." Again. I don't care about charity. If the poor are getting money procured from selling meat pies made from babies it's still money helping them pay for food. The source doesn't matter. The intent doesn't matter. Money given in charity isn't worth any more than money won in a dogfight. So when it comes down to taxing or for waiting for charity that isn't going to come, I'm going to take the former. It's a lot more moral to take a little money from everyone in order to help the poor than it is to let them starve because citizens are too busy or apathetic to help. I mean, the difference is between economically hurting everyone a little, or letting one group of people die. "To state that confiscating wealth will not financially harm someone is tantamount to stabbing someone for their own health. It is that ridiculous." Getting stabbed causes a lot of harm, obviously, and does no one any good. To me, taxes are a lot more like donating blood. Say there was a large war on and soldiers were getting wounded. So for a short time the government made it compulsory for every able-bodied person to donate blood to help the cause. Of course, it's not good for the donators' health, but in the end, it's not really all that harmful and it does a world of good to those soldiers. Same with taxes. They financially hurt everyone a little, but in the end, they're helping a lot of people. In response to your statistics: The average poverty threshold for a family of four is $18,392. Food for a family of four costs $10,400 a year. I don't know about you, but I don't think $7,992 a year is going to cover the cost of healthcare, living expenses, and the taxes on that three bedroom house. (http://www.census.gov...) Your website's actually quoting statistics from near-poverty situations. They don't qualify for financial aid, anyway, so it's really beside the point. Not to mention the fact that the most damning statistics aren't cited and can't actually be found anywhere else. "You should always state where you get your statistics." Admittedly, I should have. But regardless of whether or not I cited my statistics, that was one of the strongest arguments against getting rid of those taxes. And since that was your last round, you never will address it. Which hurts you considerably in this debate. And if you want me to cite my statistics so much, here you go. The 10% of all donations given actually go to the poor statistic is from Robert Reich, the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor. He also mentions that $20 billion is given to the poor through charity. Here's his blog. (http://robertreich.blogspot.com...) I couldn't actually find the $477 billion statistic again. So I took a look at some tax forms I had lying around. According to the tax forms, we spent $2.5 trillion on everything in year 2005, and welfare made up 14% of that $2.5 trillion. That's $350 billion. So I'll adjust my statistics for that value: The amount of money given to the poor through charities equals about 6% of the money given to the poor through taxes. If you get rid of the taxes, the poor lose 94.6% of their total financial aid. Unless everyone pitches in and voluntarily donates the same amount to the poor as would have been given to them through taxes, they get $648 a year. Which is enough to feed one person for a little over 3 months. In the scheme of things, it doesn't make a huge difference, they're still starving after all, but it's more accurate than the last statistic. Sorry. Not to mention the fact that you never even tried to address one of my strongest points. I mentioned that small charity groups just don't have the time, resources, or manpower to handle the amount of money or help anywhere near the same amount of people as our government programs. What do you plan to do about that? "…Why is it our responsibility? Why must we be made to take care of our responsibilities? After all, it is my responsibility to take care of my body, but I doubt you would then demand that we legislate against the use of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, outdoor activities etc." Uh… we legislate against the use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes already. Using illegal drugs is, well, illegal. You can't drink if you're under 21. You can't smoke if you're under 18. The government makes us take care of our responsibilities all the time. Helping the poor isn't any different. "Furthermore, the only time I have a responsibility is when someone else has a right. You have a right to not be deprived of your life by others so I have a responsibility not to kill you. You do not have a right to wealth that you did not earn so I do not have a responsibility for your financial well being." You just said it yourself. You have a right not to be deprived of life. Denying someone money or food stamps is allowing them to starve, and last I checked, starvation lead to death. Same with housing and healthcare. If someone's dead, they're dead. It doesn't matter whether you stabbed them personally or if you just let them starve. "Public schooling is a merit good." I'll be honest, I'm not too familiar with merit goods. So I looked it up. The first three examples I got were food stamps, health care, and subsidized housing. So I guess welfare is a merit good, too. Go figure. "Do you think that corporations exist in some fantasy economy where there economic health is somehow distinct from that of the average individual? How then do corporations fail?" As it is, corporations make an obscene amount of profit. The owners could still make billions of dollars if they were taxed more, even if they didn't raise costs or lower wages. I'd also love to go into just how economic health is distinct from that of the individual, but I'm out of space. And I never suggested there were any precapitalist "good old days" I just wanted to point out that our short-lived libertarian government was terrible. I don't particularly care about what happened beforehand.