As We Inch Toward Socialism, Poverty Becomes The Rule, Not The Exception

In areas where socialist policies, such as high taxes and major wealth redistribution take place, poverty is taking a hold. As the United States inches closer to socialism in terms of policy, poverty is becoming more prevalent. The only thing that communism and socialism apply equally to everyone is poverty, and according to doctors in the UK, it’s becoming the rule, not the exception.

Let’s take a look at the socialist UK overseas. Nearly one in three children in the UK (a total of four million) live in poverty. It’s a statistic that perhaps many people find shocking, but they shouldn’t. They just don’t understand that the complete control of the UK economy by the government is hampering the ability of civilians to earn money. It’s easy for the government to earn money – they simply steal it. Of course, civilians cannot just take things from others.But it’s becoming a concern for doctors, and driving up the cost of healthcare causing, even more, government interference.

Poverty makes children sick and those living in the most deprived areas have far worse health outcomes than children from the most affluent. They are more likely to be overweight or obese, suffer from asthma, have poorly managed diabetes and experience mental health problems. Infant mortality is more than twice as high in the lowest socio-economic groups compared with the highest groups. Comments from more than 250 pediatricians across the UK on the impact of poverty on child health were gathered as part of a survey by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). It certainly highlights the issue of poverty, but it won’t be blaming the stranglehold of government regulations and taxation.

The solution, according to the government and socialists, is to tax earners more, to try to give to those on the bottom a little crumb. This then puts those who are already living paycheck to paycheck below the poverty line. Then in efforts to combat even more poverty created by those taxes, the government will take even more from those who are doing well and try to help the newly created poor people, who were doing fine just fine until the government got involved. It’s a vicious cycle and one that most can’t even see. Take Los Angeles, for example. The homeless rate rose 25% in only one year, and it isn’t expected to get any better next year. Inflation, regulations, and taxes all contribute to the inability to afford housing, even with a job. Then, of course, all of that contributes to the massive increase in poverty and homelessness.

Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. In cities such as New York and Los Angeles, about 20 to 25 percent of low-income renters are spending more than half their incomes just on housing. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets. –FEE

If progressives truly cared about the poor, they would get off their backs. While the problem of poverty is a direct result of government interference, the UK, and most of the United States are blind to this fact. Venezuela is a perfect example of the failures of socialism. The few failures of capitalism are much preferable to the few successes of socialism, and it’s becoming impossible to ignore. In fact, in 2015, the poverty rate in the United States was 1% higher than it was in 2007, the year before the recession.

But the one thing that the government and its managerial aid workers will never do is just get out of the way and let poor people do the things that poor people naturally do, and always have done, to scratch by. Government anti-poverty programs are a classic case of the therapeutic state setting out to treat disorders created by the state itself. Urban poverty as we know it is, in fact, exclusively a creature of state intervention in consensual economic dealings. –FEE

Is this finally enough? Have we had enough of the effects of too much government? Or will people keep going to the polls demanding higher taxes, more laws, and more regulations? Imagine how affluent more would be if they were allowed to keep their whole paycheck.