Current Events > AOC wants America to talk about poverty

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/763793482/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wants-america-to-talk-about-poverty

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Wednesday unveiled a package of anti-poverty proposals to give more people including undocumented immigrants access to federal benefits like Medicaid.

The bills packaged as a bundle called "A Just Society" would expand access to benefits by updating the federal poverty line to include expenses like child care and Internet access and be adjusted based on where someone lives. About 40 million Americans live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census.

"I think one of the things that that we can get done is build popular support in acknowledging how bad the problem already is. In doing so we can actually begin to fundamentally address those problems," Ocasio-Cortez told NPR's Steve Inskeep. "If we can acknowledge how many Americans are actually in poverty I think that we can start to address some of the more systemic issues in our economy."

Link to the bills

https://media.npr.org/assets/news/2019/justsociety.pdf
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AlisLandale posted...

give more people including undocumented immigrants access to federal benefits like Medicaid.

Milennial woman bad

As a Brit I always thought most US citizens define their success by how well they are doing compared to other people in the country. I dont see the appetite being there for the idea of making poor people less poor because then the successful people wont feel as successful.
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On proposing access to benefits to immigrants, regardless of citizenship status

Immigrants pay taxes, and when we begin to unify our systems, I think that we will get more cohesive immigration policy, economic policy, political policy. ... And I think it sends a message that if you contribute to our society, you should benefit from our society. ...

Why should a billionaire who evades taxes collect Social Security, too? I think that what we can do is we can tighten up our systems and increase accountability. But what this says is that we will not discriminate solely based on immigration status.

I find it hard to disagree. As long as someone is putting into the system they should get something out of it.
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Kaiganeer posted...

AlisLandale posted...

give more people including undocumented immigrants access to federal benefits like Medicaid.

I mean we pay for it either way. The question is which option is cheaper.
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Most of what shes saying is good, but facilitating illegal aliens is a step in the wrong direction. Support legal citizens.
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Why not lower taxes to let people keep more of what they earn??
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I don't get the Democrats stance on immigration at all. They should just make it really easy to become a citizen, not provide more incentives to stay undocumented. It just doesn't make sense. Especially when they often preach about a living wage, but the reason companies even hire undocumented immigrants is to pay them less and shirk other labor laws.
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OctaviaMelody30 posted...

Why not lower taxes to let people keep more of what they earn??

There are several pretty compelling reasons.

1: It is 99% impossible to earn money without taking advantage of public services the government provides for free, using taxpayer money. Therefore, the government is entitled to a share of the profit they helped facilitate, and use that share to continue helping you earn more profit.
2: As American capitalism progresses, money tends to congregate in ever-greater proportions at the very top. It's easy to make money if you already have money, while poor folks have to sell their land and lease from the buyer (for example) just to survive. Progressive tax rates help offset this imbalance, which is a social good because
(a): poor people spend the money they get at higher proportions than wealthy people, which means more money is cycling through the economy, making a stronger economy (and raising wealthy peoples' stock portfolios!)
(b): when enough poor people feel like their best shot at survival is revolution, society literally collapses.
3: we have decided, as a nation, that we're going to make an effort (how much of an effort varies between administrations) to help people in our society who, for whatever reason, can't take care of themselves. In order to do that, we need money -- hence, the gathering of taxes.

If you're asking about cutting taxes of the poor and middle class, and compensating by raising taxes on the wealthy... well, we can't do that because wealthy people have bought our politicians and would rather not have their taxes raised. But I doubt you meant that, because people who throw around "lower taxes" rhetoric never do.

I probably spent too long replying to a thoughtless shitpost, but on the offchance that you actually want to discuss this, I'm happy to.
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We just need more taxes and more government oversight and regulation. That seems to always work!
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