Capitalism: Person “A” sees a panhandler and gives him $5 so said panhandler can eat.
Socialism: Person “A” is taxed $20 which is used to offset costs to include salaries and benefits of federal employees in the new “feed-the-homeless” program, after which, the remaining $0.50 is provided to the panhandler.
This exactly depicts why socialism will never work. First of all, taxing the person $20 instead of the person giving $5 means the source of the money is gone much faster. The bulk of the tax goes for “overhead” & the least bit of it to the ones actually needing the help. One person directly helping another not only eliminates the middle man(who always takes his cut),but that one person helping always has a better view of who really needs the help;unlike the indiscriminate gov’t middle man. By the time the gov’t. subtracts their share, the poor panhandler doesn’t get enough to do him any good and the taxpayer is also poorer for the effort. LBJ may have meant well, but had an idiotic way of going about it. Also, those who are being heavily taxed may not have the means left after taxes to help the poor in any substantial way. The gov’t has already wasted the largest portion of what was meant to help the poor. By doing all this, they have not only NOT helped the poor, but have created even more of them.