Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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Your argument doesn't really make sense though. If benefits should be limited to the ones who can pay taxes, why have taxes! They could just pay for what they need.
Taxing is a community safety net to make sure everybody gets what they need, even individuals who can't contribute. What you are describing sounds more like a social insurance where only people who have contributed can be covered (similar to pension)
Having taxes ensures that all members of society get the same benefit. Lets say for instance that it costs the fire department $5000 to put out a house fire for a low-income family. My income is higher, so I pay more taxes toward the fire department, but they still get the same response to their house fire that I would. That's exactly how it should be.
Now lets say that same low-income family has 8 kids. They don't need to have 8 kids (they don't need to have any), and regardless of whether they're a low-income household or part of the 1%, chances are a good number of those children won't grow up to produce a net gain to the rest of society. The parents both work entry-level jobs, so they're at least productive members of society. The 8 kids are still in school and produce no immediate benefit to society. Why should I be paying for their children when their children produce no benefit to any of the taxpayers; they could have just as easily aborted every pregnancy and not only would they be better able to support themselves, there would be 8 less non-productive individuals for the taxpayers to support. Once those 8 kids start working, then yes, my taxes should go to help support their healthcare, housing, food, etc; they might be the person making my sandwich, or they might be the person doing my brain surgery. The point is that they are contributing what they can.
Anyone who is productive in the world should receive the same social benefits as any other person who is productive in their same societal group. Children are not productive. They have the possibility of being productive, but not until they reach maturity. Until they reach that point, the only people who should be paying for them are the ones who made the poor decision to bring them into the world in the first place.