My problem with VAT is it's a consumption tax and is regressive.
Poorer households would have to pay more of their income
That's a problem, for sure. But, if we want "all these things", then we all should being paying. Like they do in Canada, eh?
Nope. With great wealth should come great responsibility.
If a poor household is constantly scuffling just to get by, they don’t have the breathing space to try and move up and ahead. That renders the “American Dream” almost unattainable unless one starts off in a good position.
Do you ever get tired of asking for handouts? The hand-ups weren't enough?
Seriously, the handouts don't work, just as reparations won't. See: "Great Society, LBJ".
The Great Society programs had a lot of problems.
Neither handouts nor reparations were among them.
It began by enacting long-stalled legislation such as Medicare and federal aid to education and then moved into other areas, including high-speed mass transit, rental supplements, truth in packaging, environmental safety legislation, new provisions for mental health facilities, the Teacher Corps, manpower training, the Head Start program, aid to urban mass transit, a demonstration cities program, a housing act that included rental subsidies, and an act for higher education.
The Model Cities Program (Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966) had some of the biggest wins and biggest losses of the Great Society Programs, after Medicare and Head Start. Its eyes were very much bigger than its stomach, especially with its approach to so-called urban renewal. But its conscious intention to train future leaders in its cities was more successful than anybody could have asked for.
Head Start... was funded by a congress that had no idea how education worked and which kept trying to evaluate this hoped-for life changing experience by dollars and cents each year, starting with the year after they funded it.
"Did it work?!" aske Congress.
"We
just got the money!" replied the folks setting up programs.
A year later, "Did it work?" came Congress' inquiry.
"We're trying to change lives and you want to know if the 4 year olds' lives have been meaningfully changed,
now. We can't tell you."
Yes, as it turns out, Head Start was one of the first big examples of a failure to build evaluation properly into what was being done educationally, and it took years to begin to get a sense of its effectiveness - arguably close to two decades.
But it changed lives for the better.
And Medicare? That was and is a win, despite its issues.