Americans seem to have a deep resentment of being taken advantage of. They're not un-generous, but their generosity is only for the "worthy", and they're afraid that the un-worthy are benefitting.
There are examples in this thread, where the poster personally knows people who do not wish to work and are somehow living the high life off of their taxes. The implication is that it's worth eliminating the program in order to avoid that; the abstraction of other deserving people who need it is less important. They wouldn't necessarily mind a system that managed to remove all of the malingerers, but even a very tiny number of them invalidates a system.
As you say, we can easily afford it: the country produces over $60,000 per person each year. It's more a matter of fairness than resources: people resent a system they perceive as unfair to them even more than they resent a system in which unfortunate people suffer.
That's certainly not unique to Americans, but from what I've seen, it dominates the thinking here more than in many other parts of the world. When you describe, say the UK's NHS or a UBI, the American mind seems to go first to "How many people must be abusing that system?"
That shouldn’t be a shocker to you, it comes down to fairness. If you have two 30 year old males, both capable of work and one works a full time job, pay 1/3 in taxes and the other guy chooses not to work and is effectively supported (in part) by the guy working, is that fair? I think most people would say no.
And I don’t think it’s unique to capitalism. Even in the Soviet Union they had “social parasites” who refused to contribute to society. Same with communal societies without a monetary system. People who can contribute but choose not to are pretty quickly pushed out.
And I see a lot of comments on HN about paying taxes as the cost of enjoying the benefits of society. Even if you ignore the unfairness of one laborer paying for another laborer to be idle (even though they can work), isn’t it unfair to society for someone to not contribute to the system they benefit so greatly from?
If you want to talk about what's unfair, the low-hanging fruit is the increasing income inequality between executives and typical workers [0], or the executives paying a lower rate in taxes than their secretaries [1].
> People who can contribute but choose not to are pretty quickly pushed out.
"Pushed out" meaning what exactly? Shamed? Debtors' prison? Homeless? No medical care? Left to starve? Euthanized? Plenty of options, none befitting a decent society.
Also, fairness (which literally everyone supports) depends greatly on framing:
1. Alice pays taxes, Bob doesn't, Bob gets free stuff from the government, so Alice is paying for Bob's selfish laziness.
2. Alice and Bob both pay 30% of their income in taxes. The government guarantees all its citizens a decent standard of living, and so gives Bob, who falls below some threshold, assistance.
3. Alice is physically and mentally healthy, so she compounds her advantages and resources. A portion of her financial gains go to the government as taxes. Bob isn't so lucky, struggles with physical or mental illness, experiences personal or family tragedies, etc. He struggles to stay financially afloat, and can't consistently accumulate a safety net to weather multiple bad outcomes. He turns to the government for help sometimes.
It comes down to whether you'd rather punish the guilty and innocent alike or would rather help the downtrodden and seemingly slothful alike. I choose to be kind, but I get that it's hard to act that way if you feel threatened.
That's a whole lot words that don't really address my point. It's a pretty universal human belief in "contributing to the common good". Even toddlers recognize fairness.
OP claimed it was some uniquely American belief. I haven't seen any evidence to support that.
If you have two 30 year old males, both capable of work and one works a full time job because they have to and another has a 10 million dollar inheritance from his family and wouldn't know what work is if it slapped him on the face, is that fair?
There are examples in this thread, where the poster personally knows people who do not wish to work and are somehow living the high life off of their taxes. The implication is that it's worth eliminating the program in order to avoid that; the abstraction of other deserving people who need it is less important. They wouldn't necessarily mind a system that managed to remove all of the malingerers, but even a very tiny number of them invalidates a system.
As you say, we can easily afford it: the country produces over $60,000 per person each year. It's more a matter of fairness than resources: people resent a system they perceive as unfair to them even more than they resent a system in which unfortunate people suffer.
That's certainly not unique to Americans, but from what I've seen, it dominates the thinking here more than in many other parts of the world. When you describe, say the UK's NHS or a UBI, the American mind seems to go first to "How many people must be abusing that system?"