Ah, well, that’s one substack I won’t be writing
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1356965069712732162
The political sustainability of means tested programs is underrated but that sustainability may be due to the burdens they place on recipients and the low participation rates those burdens engender
People often say “just raise taxes to pay for the bigger program,” well, like how popular are broad based tax hikes? The ACA is janky and stingy because it had to be paid with a pretty narrow tax
Advocates of universal programs often place the cart before the horse, as European style welfare states have tax systems that many progressives would not support (but if we had better programs maybe we’d support the requisite taxes? Who knows)
The one program everyone loves, social security, is funded via a flat tax that excludes a huge portion of the wealthy’s income but gets all of most workers’ wages. Everyone wants to replicate the program design but not the funding mechanism
Also they cut social security in the early 80s 🤷🏻♂️
I really should write this down somewhere I tweet a version of it every six weeks
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