Just redistributing wealth through social programs is much akin to giving you kid an allowance. It doesn’t motivate him to find a way to earn more.
Actually it is closer to taking money from the kid that decided to go out and get a summer job and giving it to the kid who decided to do a ‘beach bum summer’..
While ‘redistributing wealth’ has benefits, it also has some severe costs. The act of redistribution does not create value.. just ‘redistributes’ it. The act of redistribution is also a powerful dis-incentive to those that sacrificed their own time to create it. I bet that kid who decided to go for a summer job would have preferred to do a ‘beach bum summer’.
Redistribution of wealth can have a beneficial effect in offsetting the powers of scale when dealing with income. As a person earns successively more, the percentage of that income going to survival level necessities decreases. This leaves discretionary income for many purposes. Taking a small amount of this ‘excess’ is not that much a problem, but removing a large portion would disincentivize the person from putting out the effort to produce this income.
Pick up a book on economics, Thomas Sowell has some good fast reads. You will learn that government spending is simply someone else deciding how to your money should be spent.
There is one area that government spending is useful. Remember, not all spending comes from taxes.. some comes from ‘printing’ as well. One area that government spending is useful is in recovery from recessions or preventions of depressions. Generally, the government should be paying down its borrowed money when the economy is healthy or becoming ‘overheated’. The government needs to do the reverse (spending money) when times get tight. It controls the currency and needs to be a balancing force against the extremities of the market. Unfortunately, not many politicians seem to have the self control to ‘save for a rainy day’.
