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I had to read the entire paper because I was struggling to understand their definition of "using a social program" and how they decided to define a social program. Is a student loan that is paid back with interest truly a government social program? If that loan would also be available from a private source if it was not offered by the government? Pell grants, yes, but student loans? I'm not convinced. They also used the words social policy in their hypothesis but used social program when questioning participants. There is a difference between those two terms, in my own head anyway.
I think the big thing is that when people talk about "cutting spending", that doesn't include "increasing revenue" as we've seen. Increasing revenue means increasing taxes and they don't want that. So the submerged items they discuss, such as pre-tax contributions for health care and retirement are not really "spending", they are ways that revenue is reduced. Additionally, you will pay taxes on that retirement money eventually. It is a deferred tax, not an eliminated tax.
When I think of "entitlements" or "social programs", I think of the government directly spending money to provide a service or necessities to people facing hardship. I don't think I'd include veteran benefits in that either because I see that as fringe benefits of that job... sort of like hazard pay combined with workman's comp for dangerous jobs in the private sector.
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