> This seems completely, and sadly, reasonable. You probably couldn't design a situation in a lab that would screw over the poor more than COVID-19.
I'm in a very low-income rural community. With most the folks living off food stamps already, their lives were relatively unaffected by COVID-19, it's not like they were working much anyways.
If you wanted to maximally screw over the poor, you'd first get them all sitting pretty long enough to start making families while riding on a social system like food stamps, then yank it out from under them. This is something the current administration has been both working on and threatening, and that creates significantly more anxiety from what I've observed.
As someone also from a low-income rural community, I'd say that entire scenario you presented has problems deeper than removal of social systems. If you were to rank worlds from best to worst, I'd say it looks like this:
1. The poor are net positive on the tax/social system.
2. The poor are neutral on the tax/social system.
3. The poor are negative but not dependent on the tax/social system.
4. The poor are negative and dependent on the tax/social system.
5. The poor are negative and have no social system.
In your scenario, the poor start at 4. In your view, the current admin trying to move towards 5. In your view, how does one get to 3? I imagine the move to 3 would require scaling back the social system as to prevent abuse and dependency on it.
We probably agree that the poor shouldn't remain a negative impact on the tax payer and dependent on the social system (I'm a conservative, you seem to lean more left of center on this). Where we likely disagree is how to get to 3, and I think scaling back social systems is some cold water in the face to help catalyze that change.
I'm in a very low-income rural community. With most the folks living off food stamps already, their lives were relatively unaffected by COVID-19, it's not like they were working much anyways.
If you wanted to maximally screw over the poor, you'd first get them all sitting pretty long enough to start making families while riding on a social system like food stamps, then yank it out from under them. This is something the current administration has been both working on and threatening, and that creates significantly more anxiety from what I've observed.