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Overnight Video: Pale Blue Dot

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iossarian4/28/2011 8:51:34 am PDT

re: #457 imp_62

Why is it that every time I say that people who demonstrably need help in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid etc. should receive such help as they need, but those who do not need the help should not receive it, I get excoriated for proposing “means testing”? Like that would in some way be anti-American.

Well, from a political perspective, I would say that one problem with too much means testing is that when you reduce the proportion of the population that receives benefits, it becomes (ironically) easier to demonize those on benefits as “welfare queens” or other such delightful terms.

For this reason, I think that for programs like social security, it helps to have some kind of basic non-tested benefit which can then be supplemented with specific top-ups for targeted populations.