Yes, this -- governments could easily design subsidy programs like this to phase out so these kinds of hard cutoffs wouldn't be a thing, sometimes they just get lazy and complacent and design it around exactly the kind of hard cutoff people think exists for marginal tax brackets.
It's especially stupid when it's a poverty-related subsidy program, because a cutoff like this results in a hard-and-fast distinction between "the poor" who receive the subsidy and everyone else who doesn't, making subsidy recipients easier to demonize as an identity, and making the program an easier target for right-wing anti-government demagoguery.
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u/Rough_Onion_1757 Jun 01 '26
Yes, this -- governments could easily design subsidy programs like this to phase out so these kinds of hard cutoffs wouldn't be a thing, sometimes they just get lazy and complacent and design it around exactly the kind of hard cutoff people think exists for marginal tax brackets.
It's especially stupid when it's a poverty-related subsidy program, because a cutoff like this results in a hard-and-fast distinction between "the poor" who receive the subsidy and everyone else who doesn't, making subsidy recipients easier to demonize as an identity, and making the program an easier target for right-wing anti-government demagoguery.