No, The Jackpot Won’t Solve Poverty
Two great tragedies befell our nation yesterday, as anyone with a social media account would be able to tell you. The first was the loss of David Bowie, famed musician and pop culture renaissance man. People from all walks of life, all political and social classes, all across the world posted tributes the the singer who passed at the age of 69.
The second tragedy was the fact that a simple idea, articulated through a small collection of memes, went viral across this land:
This passionate plea to end poverty spread like wildfire thanks to a) our well-intentioned bleeding-heart leftist friends, and b) this increasingly vocal demographic that doesn’t consider itself liberal or conservative, just pissed off that there are rich people and it isn’t them (a large chunk of Donald Trump’s supporters).
Trending: President Trump Must Be Reelected
Our libertarian brethren over at Reason have already done a great job of using what we saw yesterday, and applying it to the presidential race. They go after Senator Bernie Sanders and his growing popularity by explaining, “Sanders has built his popularity almost exclusively on promises to spend more money not just on the poor but not on everybody, without even a hint that he understands why that would only exacerbate the ‘wealth inequality’ he rails so often against.”
Those of us who pay close attention to the news are fully aware of the same approaches and methods used by Maryland Democrats to feed on the people’s emotions in order to get more money for the projects of their choosing. This tactic is most prevalent when it comes to education spending.
Yes, let the irony of that sink in. The people who publicly demonstrate mathematical illiteracy are quite keen on lecturing everyone about the importance of education. Perhaps that is their goal all along… to show us how poorly informed they are, that those of us with a sense of fiscal prudence will take pity and throw money at the causes of their choosing. “Please take our money, you obviously need it more than I!”
Now, I don’t mean to imprudently mock our fellow Americans, no matter what side of the political aisle they may stand. But I do want to warn the people of Maryland to remember this, because the Maryland General Assembly is back and a budget battle has already been promised. The very same people who circulated this meme as the gospel, and plead with you through teary-eyes to think of all those creatures that need your money, will be using math and logic such as this throughout the media and during debates on the floor. They are the same people who accuse Maryland conservatives of “cutting spending” when Maryland conservatives may actually have continued increased spending foe certain programs, just not to the same extent as our “more thoughtful” progressive friends.
A final note about the meme that brought us here in the first place. Correct, we absolutely could just give everyone in the country 4.33 million dollars.
That’s called hyper-inflation, and it has been tried before.
….so we’ll add history and math to the courses some people could use a little brushing up on…
