My blood pressure goes up a lot too when I see some of the schemes being pulled today. But we have to just realize that in a large complicated economy, those who collect more will be “raided” to supply those who do not. If we were cavemen, then there would be some of us who were unsuccessful hunters, and some who were successul, and some who ate all they caught every day, and some who saved some steaks for tomorrow. Every night the diligent and successful hunters who set aside a few extra woolly mammoth steaks for the next day would have visitors taking the extra meat, either through social pressure or straight out force, or by sneaky theft. Even generous hunters would find that others always took more than the successful and self-denying hunters wanted to give voluntarily.
Fast forward 10,000 years, and we have a system of passing money from taxpayers and savers to those who don’t pay taxes and/or don’t save. It sucks for people like you and me that both pay lots more in taxes than we get back, and save a lot more than we spend. But we don’t have a choice, so we may as well adapt. Have another glass of wine!
