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It’s not true, but if you ask Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., she’ll tell you conservatives don’t care about poor people. Ocasio-Cortez and her socialist cohorts such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., think any empathetic person has to support her laundry list of big government proposals — dubbed the “Green New Deal.” She’s called for nationalized healthcare, a federal jobs guarantee, and even “economic security” for those who are “unwilling to work.”

 But for the poor, Ocasio-Cortez’s plan is rife with unintended consequences. The big-government platform pushed by the emerging socialist Left would do more to set the poorest Americans back, as its dysfunction extends beyond the usual dependency trap of modern welfare. Indeed, funding socialist programs this large would destroy our civil institutions and decimate private charity. After all, the roughly $93 trillion price tag on the "Green New Deal" would require unprecedented levels of taxation. Even Ocasio-Cortez’s ideal means of funding it, a 70 percent top marginal tax rate, would raise about $720 billion at most.
 
To understand why this socialist approach won’t work, you must remember how miserably the government’s anti-poverty efforts have fared to date. In his 1964 State of the Union, former President Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty.” At the time, poverty rates hovered around an embarrassing 19 percent, so Johnson promised to devote more resources to government assistance programs and various forms of welfare. Since then, taxpayers have spent around $22 trillion to fight poverty.

 

Heritage Foundation

 @Heritage
 Facing facts: The War on Poverty has failed the poor. http://dailysign.al/1mTSUgH 

 

What do we have to show for it?

In recent decades, increased government spending has barely moved the needle when it comes to the poverty rate. It hovered around 15 percent in the 1980s, and has remained roughly the same ever since, even with trillions more spent to continue fighting the war against poverty. Considering Johnson’s promises (now echoed by Ocasio-Cortez and company) to “cure” and “prevent” poverty altogether, this decline in poverty rate is, at best, a meager return on our investment. 

Yet this $22 trillion comes at a cost greater than just a massive taxpayer burden and the rising national debt. Private charity, which actually effectively fights poverty, decreases as tax rates skyrocket, and it’s not hard to see why. To some extent, anyone’s ability and willingness to charitably donate is limited by how much disposable income they have. Endless taxation to fund inefficient government anti-poverty programs leaves less in people’s pockets, so they’ve got less to donate.

[Also read: Nikki Haley launches policy group that will combat 'socialist schemes']

A bevy of research confirms this. Before former President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, churches and other private institutions played a much larger role in social welfare, according to a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Afterward, those huge increases in government spending crowded out large amounts of this charitable activity, particularly among churches. The lesson is clear: Taxes don’t just kill jobs, they can kill charity, too.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...y-and-hurts-the-poor

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Jutu posted:

“economic security” for those who are “unwilling to work.”

They already have that, in too many programs. AOC didn't care about her co-workers when she stole their tips and was forced to pay them back.

That didn't surprise anyone, nothing she says now doesn't surprise
anyone. A less than 75 IQ must be required for the Democrat
congress members.

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