Friday, March 29, 2024
 
Reddit Thread Challenges Most Recent Suggestion That More Taxes Will Aid Homeless

RESTON, VA June 7 (DPI) – A proposal to tax millionaires more to get the homeless off the streets of Los Angeles usually might get a warm embrace in progressive circles, but a recent Reddit thread suggests that young, tech-savvy readers – those who populate heavily-trafficked Reddit.com – recognize that help-the-homeless initiatives are often a racket for nonprofits and the public sector.

The most upvoted of more than 4500 comments in the thread last week focused on the “intermediary problem” in which third parties – politicians, nonprofits, advocacy groups – push to raise taxes on the wealthy for a specific purpose, and then use those captured funds for something else.  One reader saw a precedent in California, when a 2006 referendum increased taxes on millionaires to help the mentally ill – only to see “not much change” in the well being of the mentally ill ten years later:

In 2006 California passed Prop 63, taxing millionaires to help the mentally ill. I’m not seeing much change in the problem from then to now. I would expect most of the money goes to the various experts who get the funding for their programs.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_63,_Income_Tax_Increase_for_Mental_Health_Services_%282004%29

 

“I would expect most of the money goes to various experts who get the funding for their programs.” Bingo. I have insurance, but went to exactly two psychiatric evaluations across two years due to stress from grad school and life. Including the one month Xanax prescription I got, I paid out $60 and the insurance company paid out over $700. And I was just an ordinary healthy college student who spent a grand total of 60 minutes with a psych. Legit mental patients need weekly evals and regular prescriptions. All that tax does is take money from one set of multi millionaires and give it to another.

The availability of money is not the problem. It’s where the existing money gets funneled. “There’s only so much to go around” is a lie. There’s never any money to help the poor because there’s no political incentive to help the poor. It’s a dog and pony show to get more money to spend in wasteful programs and give kickbacks to “developers”. San Francisco has a $9 billion budget. We’re voting whether or not we want to raise sales tax to add a few hundred million more to our budget. For what? We still have homeless people shooting up out in the open, human poop everywhere, tent cities, people with severe mental illness roaming amongst tourists and the working people. On top of that, we have sinkholes that open up every week from old worn out water pipes or sewer lines from the 19th century. Where’s the priority to fix social problems when $9 billion doesn’t seem like it’s enough. I didn’t screw up the m with a b. It really is billions.

Honestly I’ve come to the conclusion that homelessness isn’t a problem you can tax your way out of. If you gave your average homeless guy $100,000 he would probably blow through it and be back on the streets within a few months. The underlying mental health problem is what we really need to be focused on solving.

If you gave your average homeless guy $100,000 he would probably blow through it and be back on the streets within a few months.

Someone did that and that actually happened:

The film shows Ted doing his daily dumpster-dive, collecting cans for the day’s food, cigarettes and beer, when he finds a briefcase amongst the rubbish. Ted stops to brush it off and opens it up slowly and finds that it is stuffed with cash. A note atop the money reads “What would a homeless person do if he were given $100,000?” Shocked and in tears, Ted comes to the realization that he is the recipient of a significant amount of money.

Ted almost immediately buys a new bicycle, rents a motel room and takes his buddy Mike to an amusement park. The word gets out among the homeless community and Ted, who once couldn’t find a girlfriend due to his poor dental hygiene, now enjoys female companionship in his motel room. As soon as Ted notifies his mother and sisters of his attainment of wealth, they begin to take his calls and his mother invites him to stay with her until he finds his own residence. The family is shown discussing how they are concerned for Ted’s welfare.

A week after finding the money, and having spent over $2,000, Ted is still in the motel and is asked to speak with an advocate for the homeless. The counselor asks Ted what he thinks about having the money, to which Ted replies that he really hasn’t thought about it much and that he has too much time on his hands now since he no longer has to recycle. Ted makes plans to leave for Sacramento to stay with his mother, but before leaving, he buys Mike a car and promises to fly his lady friend to Sacramento once he gets there and settled, exclaiming as he gets into the van to leave for the airport “bang ’em and leave ’em”, referring to his recent activities with the woman.

The following weeks find Ted frequenting at the local bar, his spending averaging $10,000 a week. He then purchases a $35,000 Dodge Ram and another truck for one of his recently acquired girlfriends, rents an apartment and buys furniture. The filmmakers then request that he meet with a financial planner. Ted meets with him, but firmly announces to him that he has no intentions of working and does not wish to plan ahead as he is only concerned with today. Ted states his belief that the financial planner is only after his money and rips up his card.

His sisters repeatedly try to convince Ted to seek employment, although he still believes he is “set for life”. By this time, Ted has become resentful to the film producers for giving him the money. The film then ends telling the viewer that, six months after finding the money, Ted refuses to disclose his latest bank balance; however, his sisters fear that it is less than $5,000.

On a December 1, 2006 airing of The Oprah Winfrey Show entitled: “Are You Ready For a Windfall?”, Ted and Wayne Powers were on the program to promote the documentary and speak on their account of the experiment. When asked by Oprah how much of the $100,000 he still had, Ted replied “none.” Ted also mentioned that he is homeless again, and content with his current circumstances.

As of July 2007, Ted was back in Pasadena and working for the same recycling plant shown in the film

 

 

 

Advertisements

Click Here!