Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Though we tend to disagree on issues, you often have a point. Lately I can't figure out what the fuck you're talking about. Are you busy at work? How much sleep have you been getting lately?
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Just in case anyone cares, I'll summarize my answers to these questions and statements, in reverse order, for you.
Not enough.
Insanely.
Ok.
True.
Regarding "OK", the issue is rather simple. My proposition is that we have public housing and section 8 due to a compromise. Namely, liberals who wanted something accepted it in its present form together with conserva... er, others, who just don't want it in their backyards. Problem #1. What we get is concentrated subsidized (and thus encouraged) poverty that grossly perpetuates itself, which is inefficient. Problem #2. What we get is subsidized poverty concentrated in only a few places. Public housing and section 8 is not just a benefit to the poor, its also a burden to everyone via taxes and a specific burden to the other residents in the neighborhoods in which the poverty is concentrated. The specific burden is unfair to those communities and their residents.
Fairness would require dispersing the subsidized as much as humanly possible to places where they won't overwhelm the neighborhood (take that to mean whatever you want). But the compromise included the NIMBY people. Here they argued that its OK to place the burden on other neighborhoods (as long as its gotta go somewhere), but don't place any part of it on them.
Result? We have an unworkable and inefficient system that has existed for 40 or more years with little positive result. We have the NIMBY people (read: suburbanites) joining a leftist coalition to tolerate the subsidies in the first place, as long as someone else (who just might be you or me) carries the burden of living amongst the subsidized and publicly housed.
Its really that simple. Inefficient and unfair to some neighborhoods and their residents. If people don't want some forms (i.e., able-bodied, working-age) public housing or section 8 in their neighborhood, they should vote against it in any neighborhood. Instead, the burden of this national program is involuntarily foisted onto the backs of the few, while the happy coalition of mostly-suburban "conservatives", in bed with the legacy the Great Society social experiment, chirp not a word unless someone suggests maybe they should bear the burden of their collusion with the Devil.
Either way, the only way the program works is if the recipients are spread out. But the above-noted "conservatives" accept the status quo for 40+ years, only as long as the recipients are not spread out, which is not a "fair" position that the Right accepts. Thus, I'm merely pointing out that there are two ways to be Right here:
1.) Get rid of this and all other boondoggles; or
2.) Spread it out so that it works, because this ain't what's happening now.
The secondary effects (e.g., white flight to the suburbs, increased driving, death of northern cities etc.) is largely attributable to the above-noted coalition agreement that tolerates the NIMBYs. All protests aside, numerous suburbs exist which are indistinguishable from the nearby cities in terms of land use etc., except for the absence of any significant public housing. Late protests regarding the desire for a large plot ring hollow when the underlying protest is to putting a section 8 renter or public housing unit on the plot next door. The fact is, some people tolerate the program only as long as the burden will only fall on others.
You want to see how quickly this country could get rid of public housing and most section 8? Propose to spread it out so that the recipients might show up as anyone's neighbor. In terms of bang for our bucks, it would be hard to get a record worse than this nation already has for these programs. Strangely, it shows the great dangers of consensus building in a democracy. 51% of the people can easily impose a burden on the other 49%, like building public housing in only the 49%'s neighborhoods.
Summary? It sure as hell ain't Right.
