Do governments have a moral obligation to use tax dollars to assist poor people?

From Quora discussion: "Do governments have a moral obligation to use tax dollars to assist poor people?"

In an ideal world, any form of government would champion consensus morality, and enable a rule of law that reflects that consensus. That is the whole point of government, after all, and the attraction of democracy is that it is intended to broaden that consensus. You can quickly identify some of the moral fundamentals in the formation of U.S. federal government in our Constitution's preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

To understand what terms like "blessings of liberty," "domestic tranquility" and "general welfare" actually mean (in a moral sense), you need only study the Constitution further...well, and study the full unfolding of U.S. history since then! But speaking to your question (again, in the U.S.), we read further in the Constitution:

Section 1, Article 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..." Section 8 then goes on to enumerate the scope of government tax spending, such as in regulating commerce, establishing post offices and roads, printing money, promoting "the progress of science and useful arts" through trademarks and copyrights, maintaining a military and waging war, and so on.

So the U.S. government, from its inception, has been (morally) empowered to collect taxes and "provide for the general welfare of the United States" in various ways. That is, it was intended to have this moral authority imbued by a consensus of "We the People." Again, though, how has the meaning of these terms (liberty, welfare, tranquility) evolved in this context...?

There has been understandable debate over how narrow or broad of an interpretation the U.S. Congress has in its discretion to define general welfare, liberty and domestic tranquility, and to tax and spend accordingly at the federal level. You can read about some of this debate at these links: General Welfare clause and General Welfare. However, by following the development of both the Constitution itself (via the Amendment process), court rulings over many decades, and the elaboration of specific rights in State constitutions, what constitutes the expression of these moral imperatives in U.S. law has become more and more refined. It is exceptionally clear, for example, that the federal government has a critical role in championing civil liberties (our individual rights to practice religion, have free speech, own a rifle, not be searched without a warrant, to have speedy trials by a jury of our peers, to not be subject to cruel or unusual punishments, etc.). And of particular importance is the 9th Amendment, which states that the previously defined Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." In other words, we have a lot more rights not enumerated in the Constitution. This is, in fact, how all Americans were secured the right to use contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut) and have access to assisted abortions (Roe v. Wade).

In keeping with the spirit of Article V and the 9th Amendment, we have additional amendments that secured additional rights (again at the federal level), such as freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude (13th), the right to due process and equal protection under the law (14th), and the right to vote regardless of race, skin color, previous servitude, gender, ability to pay a tax, or being 18-20 years old (15th, 19th, 24th & 26th). And all of these obviously contribute to liberty, domestic tranquility and providing for the general welfare. However, some state constitutions go a lot further, and are very clear about the inclusion of assisting the poor, providing education, and promoting public health as part of the moral scope of their governance and taxation (see 'To Promote the General Welfare' | ACS). New York's Constitution is particularly transparent when it reads in Article XVII that “the aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state."

As you can see, the use of tax dollars to "assist poor people" is an ever-evolving issue. The 24th Amendment and the subsequent Voting Rights Act were specifically targeted to assist the poor in voting - an instance which irrefutably supports the use of taxes to fulfill moral obligations to the underprivileged. The 13th Amendment certainly targeted the poor as well, as did the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And how can the 5th/14th Amendments' Due Process clause be fulfilled (i.e. no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law) without poor folks being appointed a public defender? Again, here taxes are being spent (predominantly) on poor people. But of course the extent of governmental powers to proceed in this fashion is still a hotly debated topic. At one end of the spectrum are those whose romantic, unrealistic ideals of anarchy or unfettered capitalism resist any authoritative form of government, and at the other end we have folks who unrealistically romanticize the extent to which government can act for the public good. In reality, our current "mixed" political economy (see Mixed economy) is somewhere in the middle, struggling to balance variations of these interests and ideologies. But the point is that, until the U.S. Constitution is specifically amended to limit the government's moral obligation to promote the general welfare, liberty and domestic tranquility through taxation, that is precisely what government is intended to do. The only substantive debate in the political mainstream regarding this obligation has been what should occur at the state level vs. what should occur at the federal level.

I hope this was helpful.

Why are more liberals not libertarians?

From Quora response to "Why are more liberals not libertarians?"

I think it would be helpful to clarify your terms. Both progressives and neoliberals can be classified as "liberal," but with very different political orientations. Left-libertarians and right-libertarians are both "libertarian," but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of economic models and vision of what the anarchistic endgame looks like. After reading through all 108 answers here, I was surprised that so few folks who answered your question actually clarified these variations, which are pretty essential. Sure, it is easy to conflate "libertarian" with anarcho-capitalist, since the Koch brothers and their ilk have done an excellent job reframing the Tea Party movement in that light. And it's easy to assume anyone who self-identifies as a liberal is NOT a "classic liberal," but left-leaning on issues of social justice. However, IMO it is absolutely essential to differentiate and use the appropriate terms for the ideologies being discussed. That said, kudos to the half dozen folks who did elaborate on these nuances in their answers. :-)

With this said, I am definitely both a "progressive" and a "left-libertarian." It's quite easy to be both, because on the one hand a progressive prioritizes improving the quality of human existence for all people, however that may be accomplished (see Progressivism) and on the other some form of transitional libertarian socialism (see Libertarian socialism ) seems like an excellent direction to take from where we are now to reify progressive values. The details of how to get there is - as with any new vision - where the real debate begins. I have some ideas I proposed in a recent book (you can download a free copy here: Political Economy and the Unitive Principle : T.Collins Logan : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive), and Noam Chomsky is also of course a great source for this brand of libertarianism.

So the real issue here as I see it may be that not many people have informed themselves about what the terms "libertarian" and "liberal" really represent.

My 2 cents.

Why do so many Americans believe limiting corporate election financing violates freedom?

From Quora response to "Why do so many Americans believe limiting corporate election financing violates freedom?"

To understand why so many Americans believe things that are actually counter to their own best interests, I recommend watching The Billionaires' Tea Party (2011) (this a link to the full film). Like so many corporate-driven agendas, this is really just another example of wealthy individuals deluging folks with carefully tailored propaganda that energizes tribal groupthink in favor of plutocracy. Here's the substance of the underlying challenge, to my mind: wealth, influence and cultural privilege have always tended to distort the democratic process. This is why, for example, wealthy white folks in the South used complicated voting requirements to discourage or entirely disable poor black folks from voting - they were simply afraid of losing their position of power, wealth and privilege in southern society. In very much the same way, rich white men today are trying to use the courts and the political process to protect their position in society, and the Koch brothers (see the film referenced above) are the poster kids for this ongoing manipulation.

More specifically regarding your question, however, I recommend researching how "corporate personhood" came into being, and how, really, it has no basis in the U.S. Constitution (see Corporate Personhood Challenged - Top 25 of 2004 for a concise summary). But the issue can be described even more simply than that. Let's say you and I are attending an auction. This auction, however, is about buying free speech. Various items are brought up to the auction block: 72 hours of primetime TV advertising is one; 82% of talk show host's on-air interviewing time is another; 4,000 inches of major newspaper op-eds is another; 65% of major network election news coverage is another; and so on. Each time you and I try to bid for the items, we are outbid by the corporations in attendance. We keep bidding for these essential elements of any election campaign, but we just can't match the multi-million-dollar bids from the corporate bidders with whom we, as individuals, are competing. And the thing is, these are "winner-take-all" situations; there is no sharing here, because whoever bids the highest gets ALL of these items, and therefore ALL of the tools to reach and persuade the public.

So this really isn't about "fair and equal" representation, it's about having any representation at all. For when corporate interests control the election process so completely that politicians feel they must represent those corporate interests instead of the electorate, democracy is essentially destroyed. What happens then is...well...things like ALEC - see Bill Moyers expose ALEC here:



So IMO this isn't about fairness or freedom in the abstract, it's about the fundamental functioning of democracy.

My 2 cents.

Comment from James Cribbs:

With regards to the Koch Brothers, you might want to see how they stack up against others.

2014 Top Donors to Outside Spending Groups

The funny thing here is that no one can even come close to Thomas Steyer, who supports liberals exclusively. The Koch brothers gave a total of $7,000,000 in the 2014 cycle. Steyer gave over $73,000,000.

The questions is, since you are willing to call out the Koch Brothers, are you also willing to call out Steyer and all the others on the list?


My Response:

You make a good point, James, as there are folks like Steyer, Bloomberg, Eychaner, etc. on the left who donate a LOT of money to political campaigns. They donated enough, in fact, to offset 17 of the top 25 donors in 2014 who were solidly Republican (see Top Individual Contributors: All Federal Contributions) Here's the rub though: in 2014, some 71% of all spending was "dark money;" that is, the donors were undisclosed (thanks to Citizens United and other activist rulings.), see Undisclosed spending in elections threaten American democracy. A lot of this involves groups funded by both sides, but the vast majority are conservative, and that has been true for some time (88% of dark money in 2010 was from conservative orgs, 85% in 2012, and in 2014 it was about 2:1 in favor of conservative orgs, so the liberal orgs are slowly catching up). For more info see Ad Spending Tops $1 Billion; Dark Money Groups Buy Significant Share. And guess who was behind the lion's share of conservative organizations flooding these elections with dark money? The Koch brothers (see Record spending in 2014 midterm elections result of 'dark money' from unidentified donors). We're talking $400 Million here from the Koch orgs...which of course dwarfs Steyer's measly $73 Million. But James the real point IMO - and circling back on the main theme of my post - is that when you read through these articles, everyone is concerned about the same thing: too much big money in politics, whether undisclosed or not, and regardless of political leaning. And so yes, to directly answer your question: we need to curtail this trend in ALL political campaigns, and from ALL ends of the political spectrum. Otherwise this is effectively the end of a democracy that represents anyone but the plutocrats.

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Rand Paul's "Implied Threat of Force"

From discussion on Karen Molenarr Terrell's Facebook post:


There is just as much of "an implied threat of force" to sacrifice individual and collective well-being on the altar of negative liberty. It is a much greater (and more destructive) "entitlement" to demand freedom without any constructive reciprocation to society via mutually beneficial social contract. Prosocial traits evolved to support collective thriving - our species could not have survived at all without them - but since those who gravitate towards right-wing Libertarian ideologies tend to lack these prosocial instincts, they dismiss or deny their importance. Yet it is the non-rational desire for the well-being of others - not rational self-interest - that has always sustained social cohesion and inspired humanity to its greatest achievements. It was not until the postmodern, highly commercialized, technological era that the illusion of self-sufficiency fully undermined this commonsensical understanding of reality. And as more and more people have felt isolated and disconnected (even though they are actually still quite dependent on each other), the Randian (objectivist) perspective has grown in popularity.

And of course pro-capitalist sentiments dovetail perfectly with this I/Me/Mine mentality, because the ideal consumer is one who believes they can empower themselves alone through consumption and materialism, rather than thriving through cooperation, collaboration and more collective or egalitarian goals and values (which are the natural antagonists of commercialism). And yet, since this isolation, independence and self-sufficiency is a profound deception - since we are, on the contrary, all increasingly interdependent - acting from that deception and imposing it on all expectations, conditions and institutions in society, just as these right-wing Libertarians do, is actually an extreme form of violence. It is no different than a cult leader holding his followers hostage to his egoic whims, or McCarthy excoriating gay people, or the Catholic Church burning witches at the stake. To disable democratic will and mutually beneficial social contract in favor of individual freedom that is unencumbered with the collective good returns us to the Dark Ages of human civilization. It is as caustically egocentric as it is ignorant of human history and evolution. But as with any meme, once an ideology becomes infected with tribalism and intolerance, it is extremely difficult to counter, even with the greatest compassion. So this ignorant, arrogant, egocentric Randian (objectivist) fad may just have to run its course. Hold on to your horses.