Originally posted by: Candy Wright
Surely, Kevin, you know that public school has never been "free." Remember taxes? What do you think pays for the building and books and utilities and lunch and teachers and the janitor, for starters? Our parently paid them so to us it didn't mean anything when we were kids. Now we pay them for everyone else. Can anyone guess how much is paid in taxes for every kid who ever went to K-12 in our lifetimes? Not to mention the roads and the rest of it.
Boilerman calls everything other people get from the government "free shit" and everything he gets as, well...something else. Of course I realize that none of it is actually free. He seems not to.
Boilerman thinks that when someone gets a food stamp voucher, that person hasn't EVER paid into the system and is just a scumbag freeloader. In actuality, of course, we all pay into the system, and that includes anyone who is broke, unemployed, and living on food stamps--that person has paid taxes one way or another, all his life.
If you like, you can view social welfare as a type of insurance. Food stamps, disability, unemployment benefits, etc.--we all pay into the system so that we have a safety net if we need it. YES, a person getting benefits is AT THE MOMENT receiving more than he is paying in. That's how insurance works.
What twists Boilerman's panties--and those of orthodox conservatives--is that he's never had to use those resources (apparently) and thus, feels cheated because he had to pay taxes. In Boilerman World, a person is only entitled to the exact dollar amount in benefits of the taxes he's paid in in his lifetime. That's not the way it works--as with any insurance.
But aside from that, Boilerman ignores all the benefits he and his family have received for "free" over his lifetime. Yes, he pays taxes. But the value of what he's gotten from the government dwarfs that amount. He's just unwilling to acknowledge that simple truth.
