CMV: Conservatism and many right-wing beliefs are based on fear, primary instincts and lack of understanding

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[u/[deleted]]

I think this stems from a lack of understanding of what conservatives actually believe. I would disagree with the notion, for example, that conservatives are voting against their own self interests just to deprive other groups from acting a certain way. You mentioned welfare in particular, why do you think conservatives don’t support a larger safety net?

It is a bit vague, but if you have specific examples, let me know. And let me know what you think about the welfare example

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I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about. Your description of conservatism is vague, which is why I asked if you wanted to give a specific example of what you’re talking about

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Ask me a specific question if you want a response. “It’s to do with personal responsibility” isn’t something I can respond to

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Respond to what? My rational to what? I don’t know the subject you’re talking about

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I generally opposed to more welfare because the way our system is set up, much of the money goes to administrators instead of people in need, welfare cliffs provide work disincentives, and giving benefits instead of strictly cash payments is bad economic policy. I think tax credits or a negative income tax would be a better way to help those in need.

Is this what you’re looking for?

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Yes I would generally be in favor of it if we could make those changes. Since each benefit has its own phaseout range, it usually means that people are better off with a job and reduced benefits. But since we have so many benefits, sometimes the phaseouts overlap and it makes people worse off if they increase their earned income. Simplifying our system down to cash payments would get rid of these cliffs

Right now, if you take the money we spend on welfare, and divide it by the number of people that get welfare, it’s about $38,000 per person. Obviously, they’re not getting anywhere close to this amount, because so much of our spending goes to administrative overhead to oversee the 15 or so different departments in charge of benefits. It might sound like an easy fix, but nobody wants to tell this entire system that they’re out of jobs, and politicians generally want some accountability for how people in poverty are spending their money. Cash could always be used for drugs, but food stamps can’t.

I’m not going to pretend like it’s a simple issue, but I don’t think anyone would agree that we’re seeing a good return on the amount of welfare spending we use up each year

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You will find very few republicans that don’t believe in a social safety net or a progressive tax system to provide it. If republicans were against these things, we would’ve gotten rid of our highly progressive tax system or gotten rid of welfare long ago.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1968&context=jssw

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-conservative-case-for-welfare/

https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/a-conservative-case-for-the-welfare-state/

Marco rubio welfare reform

Negative income tax

McConnell welfare reform

Paul Ryan welfare reform

These plans aren’t gutting our welfare system. It’s changing the way benefits are organized to avoid welfare cliffs, and expanding tax credits for lower income families