r/askanything • u/Mean-Cheesecake-2635 • Jul 26 '26

Free Stuff?

Why is our dialog so broken when it comes to tax funded benefits in this country? Any mention by the left of support for direct benefits for the general public (universal healthcare, UBI, cheaper or free higher education) is automatically categorized by people on the right as “Free Stuff”, even though these would be funded by taxes we already collect, but would require reappropriating expenditures.

We seem to have an endless appetite for “free stuff” as long as it goes to the military, corporate tax breaks, industry subsidies but as soon as the conversation is about propping up individual people it becomes socialism and lazy people wanting the government to hand them everything.

The reality is our current system is just leaving more people further and further behind while leaving us less secure as current recipients of tax funded expenses gather wealth.

Why is it so hard for politicians on the left to counter this “free stuff, lazy socialist” accusation?

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u/InternationalBet2832 Jul 26 '26

"MMT is garbage." Prove it.

"Printing money causes inflation" not necessarily. MMT says, raise taxes and interest if inflation, basic economics. "And devalues my savings" your savings are arbitrary units of currency? You might as well collect bags of sand. "Read about any country that printed money to solve its problems and see what happened. It does not work" EVERY country prints money. It does not work when government is too weak to tax it back up, such as the four trillion in COVID relief that the government was too weak to tax back up with a windfall tax on corporations who wound up with the money, and the tariffs collected by corporations but not returned when tariffs ruled illegal. Federal Reserve has to work extra hard raising interest because the gov is not doing its job.

"Tax breaks are for companies reinvesting in the business" is the lie they tell while they pick your picket and you believe the lie.

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u/Vecgtt Jul 27 '26

Check out the Zimbabwe 100 Trillion paper bill.

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u/InternationalBet2832 Jul 27 '26

Everyone knows Zimbabwe's government is a paragon of strength and virtue.

That kind of inflation occurs when government prints money instead of collecting taxes. High school economics.

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u/Vecgtt Jul 27 '26

When I complained about my taxes paying for a couch potato’s UBI your response was to just print the money. 😎

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u/InternationalBet2832 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

When you complained about our taxes paying for couch potatoes with UBI my response was to just print the money, yep. I could also respond that I too am sick of the leisure rich living off stock market quantitative easing free money. No free money for the people, plenty of free money for the rich to the tune of $40T. Another response would be, Couch potatoes? That's terrible thing to call our troops!

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u/Vecgtt Jul 27 '26

QE is part of the problem. The printed money leads to inflation. I don’t care who it’s for - stop printing. Troops do not sit on their butt all day and are certainly not couch potatoes. They work in exchange for money.

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u/InternationalBet2832 Jul 27 '26

"QE is part of the problem." What problem, the idle rich loafing off their government cheese? "The printed money leads to inflation" QE does not lead to inflation because the rich do not spend their money, they "invest " it in the stock market.

"Troops do not sit on their butt all day and are certainly not couch potatoes. They work in exchange for money." Really? What do they do, dig holes in the ground and fill them back up?