NationStates Jolt Archive

A certain amount of social welfare is enough. I am opposed against an ever-growing amount of welfare programs.
Where does money for welfare come from? Why, it comes from the people, or more specifically, their taxes. Since corporate tax receipts have fallen to a record low since a few decades ago, presumably, it is rather, the middle class who is paying for such "benefits".
What is social welfare anyways? A promise by the government to take money from Peter to pay Paul, and get praised for it. Although some welfare could be left alone, most should be eradicated.
But then again, we could have government sponsered insurance programs. Unemployment insurance, disability insurance etc... Paying would be mandatory for everyone, and their contributions would be matched by their employers to a certain extent.
And we would have "independent" people to manage the funds, so they don't "disappear" or get embezzled.
If a worker is disabled due to an accident, he should get compensation. If a person is a heavy drinker and smoker and gets a lot of illnesses, he should NOT be compensated. Face it, if someone eats lots of fast food, and doesn't have a healthy diet even though he knows the importance of one, why in the world should he have any portion of society's wealth? Should society pay the price for the misdealings of these people? You can guess from my question that the answer is a strong No.
Then, welfare would be given to the real needy, others would not have a portion of it, which will dramatically lower the price society pays for misdoers. Lots of illnesses are due to unhealthy habits. These people have no reason to make us pay for their lavishness and ignorance.
Charity should be done by private "kind" individuals. The government has no part in such unnecessary action.(Don't forget whose money is used to fund the programs.)
If unemployment is 5% in the US, the funds from the rest of the country would be more than enough to pay for it, or give some compensation.
Retirement being funded by the government is a bigger joke. Trillions of dollars of deficits are going to emerge sooner or later. And guess who pays the bill? The taxpayers of course.
If a man cannot save money for his own retirement, should society aid him? Maybe. But when you are looking at millions of old people, not preparing for own retirement, overspending and such, WHO , I ask is going to pay his bill? As life expectancy lengthens the staggering amount society has to pay will be enormous. Are we to pay for the lavishness of millions of consumerist spend happy people?
As you see, if people could be more rational, we wouldn't need social welfare, or much of it could be omitted.
Got to go, Feel free to discuss.

Welfare is supposed to be a net, to catch people when they fall. Especially those who gets injured in accidents or paralysed and such.

Unfortunately many seem to abuse the system too often.

People got to learn to handle their money better. They should have a classes in school to teach students especially teens to save their money and invest wisely.

I read somewhere that 90% of people, if they lose their jobs, they'll be bankrupt in a month.

-rant-
its called distributive justice. note the word justice

i am all for welfare programs, but typing more would take me away from my lasagne:)

As you see, if people could be more rational, we wouldn't need social welfare, or much of it could be omitted.

Any suggestions on how to make people more rational?

Your post is kind of amusing, considering your name. I suppose you see it as your duty to clean up after Bismarck I.

Social welfare is a trap, not a net.

its called distributive justice. note the word justice

i am all for welfare programs, but typing more would take me away from my lasagne:)

That Lasagne is going to give you a heart attack. Guess who's gonna have to pay for that? That's right. The friggin taxpayers. you friggin Italian-food-eating heart-attack-having socialist.

That Lasagne is going to give you a heart attack. Guess who's gonna have to pay for that? That's right. The friggin taxpayers. you friggin Italian-food-eating heart-attack-having socialist.

Alright, that was just mean...

its called distributive justice. note the word justice

i am all for welfare programs, but typing more would take me away from my lasagne:)
Just a use of a certain word, namely justice. I think we can be pretty sure that justice is actually quite relative. For what does justice derive from? A principal of fairness, basically? And what is fair? Does fair just kind of exist out there in the ether as some sort of constant concept? No. Fair is relative. Fair to me is a free exchange between two or more individual, lacking of all coercion besides that of nature (for nature coerces all, does it not?) But fair to you is a totally different thing.

Robert Nozick wrote a wonderful little piece on this in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia back in the seventies. The book that "made libertarianism intellectually respectable."


Oh, and enjoy your lasagne, for I think we can all agree that everything relating to lasagne is just. I think I might go track some down for myself...

Alright, that was just mean...
bah, mean is fun. We practice it on my floor constantly, we're assholes to each other, but we're great friends, except for Bor-dizzle, B-t-K, the Russian Jew, and the mysterious french fellow, who replaced Matt, who replaced "the Yeti"

But the point of this mad story is "mean is nice"

wow, that makes no sense.

bah, mean is fun. We practice it on my floor constantly, we're assholes to each other, but we're great friends, except for Bor-dizzle, B-t-K, the Russian Jew, and the mysterious french fellow, who replaced Matt, who replaced "the Yeti"

But the point of this mad story is "mean is nice"

wow, that makes no sense.

*hands Andaluciae a cookie*

"That Lasagne is going to give you a heart attack. Guess who's gonna have to pay for that? That's right. The friggin taxpayers. you friggin Italian-food-eating heart-attack-having socialist."

What? Are you making a stereotype their? What a jackass! Italian food is good for you. Complex carbohydrates (choice of athletes) and tomatoes (good for your HEART) salads with vinigrette dressing... Socialist... no comment on that. I'm Italian, I eat Italian food, I'm a republican.

What? Are you making a stereotype their? What a jackass! Italian food is good for you. Complex carbohydrates (choice of athletes) and tomatoes (good for your HEART) salads with vinigrette dressing... Socialist... no comment on that. I'm Italian, I eat Italian food, I'm a republican.

No offense, Godfather... It was a joke... I would never go against the family. I don't even know Fredo.

A certain amount of social welfare is enough. I am opposed against an ever-growing amount of welfare programs.
Where does money for welfare come from? Why, it comes from the people, or more specifically, their taxes. Since corporate tax receipts have fallen to a record low since a few decades ago, presumably, it is rather, the middle class who is paying for such "benefits".

Umm...why have corporate tax receipts fallen? Perhaps because corporations bought themselves some politicians to lower their tax rates and/or write loopholes into the tax code? Seems to have worked quite well since the 1950's when corporate tax rates were astronomical, especially on "windfall" profits.

What is social welfare anyways? A promise by the government to take money from Peter to pay Paul, and get praised for it. Although some welfare could be left alone, most should be eradicated.
But then again, we could have government sponsered insurance programs. Unemployment insurance, disability insurance etc... Paying would be mandatory for everyone, and their contributions would be matched by their employers to a certain extent.
And we would have "independent" people to manage the funds, so they don't "disappear" or get embezzled.

In the American plutocracy/kleptocracy, finding "independent" money managers would probably be damn near impossible.

If a worker is disabled due to an accident, he should get compensation. If a person is a heavy drinker and smoker and gets a lot of illnesses, he should NOT be compensated. Face it, if someone eats lots of fast food, and doesn't have a healthy diet even though he knows the importance of one, why in the world should he have any portion of society's wealth? Should society pay the price for the misdealings of these people? You can guess from my question that the answer is a strong No.
Then, welfare would be given to the real needy, others would not have a portion of it, which will dramatically lower the price society pays for misdoers. Lots of illnesses are due to unhealthy habits. These people have no reason to make us pay for their lavishness and ignorance.

Are you willing to allow the government to monitor everything you eat to make sure you aren't eating junk food? Such a draconian policy would be required to differentiate between health problems caused by diet/smoking and health problems that are unrelated to personal responsibility or lack thereof.

Charity should be done by private "kind" individuals. The government has no part in such unnecessary action.(Don't forget whose money is used to fund the programs.)

Unfortunately, there aren't enough private "kind" individuals to meet the demands on private charities if welfare was to be cut. Why give to charity when you can buy a shiny new toy (like a luxury SUV or yacht) instead? Rampant consumerism is definitely one of the more disgusting aspects of American culture...*sighs*

If unemployment is 5% in the US, the funds from the rest of the country would be more than enough to pay for it, or give some compensation.

The unemployment rate is statistically manipulated to make it seem as low as possible. For example, underemployed people (such as IT workers who can't find a job in their field so they work at McDonalds) aren't counted, people who have given up looking for a job because they haven't been able to find one in six months aren't counted, and the government fudges with the numbers to "seasonally adjust" them to boot.

Retirement being funded by the government is a bigger joke. Trillions of dollars of deficits are going to emerge sooner or later. And guess who pays the bill? The taxpayers of course.
If a man cannot save money for his own retirement, should society aid him? Maybe. But when you are looking at millions of old people, not preparing for own retirement, overspending and such, WHO , I ask is going to pay his bill? As life expectancy lengthens the staggering amount society has to pay will be enormous. Are we to pay for the lavishness of millions of consumerist spend happy people?

You do realize that Social Security is one of those government social insurance programs that you allegedly supported, right? Social Security isn't going to make you rich; it's there so you can afford a roof over your head and food to eat in your retirement if for some reason you couldn't save for retirement or your savings were wiped out by unscrupulous greedy people, a la Enron.

Regarding consumerism I agree to a point, but I think more stringent regulation of advertising would be a far more effective way of regulating it than cutting welfare for people who can't afford to be consumerists in the first place.

As you see, if people could be more rational, we wouldn't need social welfare, or much of it could be omitted.
Got to go, Feel free to discuss.

The thought of the entire US population being rational is a thought beyond my comprehension. *dreams*

Look at my country.

2% income tax. And I'm doing great!

Any suggestions on how to make people more rational?

I have one, but I think that's why you don't hear Bush talking about universal mental health screening in our public schools. If people weren't nuts they'd stop voting republican.

Welfare should only be used to insure a person's social and economic freedoms.

It should go towards:

universal healthcare
universal education
maximization of small business opportunities
bankruptcy coverage
deposit insurance
and insurance from fraud

I may have forgot some items but you get the idea.

Any suggestions on how to make people more rational?

Mandatory classes in developmental child psychology for expecting parents would help a generation or two down the line.

Welfare should only be used to insure a person's social and economic freedoms.

It should go towards:

universal healthcare
universal education
maximization of small business opportunities
bankruptcy coverage
deposit insurance
and insurance from fraud

I may have forgot some items but you get the idea.

I would like to add a higher minimum wage. If poor people received more pay for their labor, many welfare programs that currently exist could be cut back with little ill effect.

I would like to add a higher minimum wage. If poor people received more pay for their labor, many welfare programs that currently exist could be cut back with little ill effect.

I would much rather have tax breaks for those of low incomes. Minimum wages can have a very bad effect on the economy as well.

Higher minimum wages mean less jobs and higher prices.

Also, the main purpose I would want welfare to serve, in better terms than I originally stated, is to keep people from entering into contracts and decisions under duress.

So, while minimum wages doesn't really apply, a basic unemployment and worker compensation would also be included.

I would much rather have tax breaks for those of low incomes. Minimum wages can have a very bad effect on the economy as well.

Higher minimum wages mean less jobs and higher prices.

So we should do away with minimum wages and let businesses pay their workers thirty cents an hour as they do in China? Yeah, lowering the tax rate is really gonna help those workers...some of whom have their entire federal income tax withholdings refunded to them anyway. :rolleyes:

So we should do away with minimum wages and let businesses pay their workers thirty cents an hour as they do in China? Yeah, lowering the tax rate is really gonna help those workers...some of whom have their entire federal income tax withholdings refunded to them anyway. :rolleyes:

Companies have incentives to pay their workers a fair wage. Why do you suppose I have a student worker position with no real required qualifications, yet make .75 more than minimum wage?

I admit they do serve a purpose, but if the government wants to insure that the workers of the nation make at least a standard income, they need to do it without issuing regulations that are punitive to the company.

EDIT: And the basic unemployment that I mentioned in the other post would enable low level workers from being forced into poor jobs because they are starving. They would be able to exist at a level until finding work that pays a fair compensation for labor.

Companies have incentives to pay their workers a fair wage. Why do you suppose I have a student worker position with no real required qualifications, yet make .75 more than minimum wage?

I admit they do serve a purpose, but if the government wants to insure that the workers of the nation make at least a standard income, they need to do it without issuing regulations that are punitive to the company.

EDIT: And the basic unemployment that I mentioned in the other post would enable low level workers from being forced into poor jobs because they are starving. They would be able to exist at a level until finding work that pays a fair compensation for labor.

If the government wants to ensure a standard minimum income, they have three basic ways of doing it. I know this is somewhat simplified, but pretty much anything the government could do would fall under one of these categories:

1) Guarantee the mimimum income through direct payments from the government to workers i.e. welfare.

2) Enact and enforce minimum wage laws.

3) Some combination of the above.

Now, under all three plans, someone will have to pay for it. In the case of the first option, the taxpayers pay, and in the case of the second, the corporations pay. Under the third, obviously, the cost is spread among both taxpayers and businesses.

Now, you might not particularly care for these sorts of labor regulations because you have indicated that you are a "student worker." I am guessing this means that you are still at least financially dependent on someone else, probably your parents. For that matter, I'm in a similar situation.

If I may go a bit further, I would guess that you have never had to attempt to live on minimum wage without any outside support. Trust me, (and I do not say this from personal experience, but from the experience of others I happen to know) you do not want to.

Now I personally happen to believe that anyone who is gainfully employed has the right to basic shelter, food, healthcare, etc. I am by no means a communist, but I see these things as basic human rights. Whether or not you agree with me on this premise is a matter of philosophy which will eventually turn into a big circular debate whereby neither person changes his/her mind and we spend a few hours in front of the keyboard and accomplish nothing. :rolleyes:

But yes, I will acknowledge that someone has to pay for it. I am more than willing to pay more for goods if I know the companies I deal with treat their workers reasonably. This isn't just hot air; I shop at unionized grocery stores instead of Wal-Mart for example, despite the higher prices.

Edit: Oh, and Wal-Mart could seem to care less about the incentives of paying employees a fair wage, such as a chance to earn my business.

I am against all forms of welfare. It makes me feel good to walk through streets littered with dying homeless elderly people and be thankful that I was born into great wealth. It's good to be the king.

I am against all forms of welfare. It makes me feel good to walk through streets littered with dying homeless elderly people and be thankful that I was born into great wealth. It's good to be the king.

Me too, Im glad we can at last agree on something. :)
The filthy cripples.

Nice debate we have here.
First, someone mentioned insurance and Social Security. What is insurance? Something sort of as a safety net if you trigger the policy. Social Security, is for everyone who puts money into it, it's different.
And how can we make people more rational? Well, that takes a bit of work, but it can be done with school curriculum. You need to teach children from age 10 or near that what is the true meaning of an asset, a liability. And not to overconsume etc... Give them examples of people who did overconsume. The US society probably spends more money on DARE programs than on teaching their next generation not to over spend(it would ruin the capitalists but then it is still a better place for tax money) You do not need to most modernized schools, what you need to less politics in schools. You do not need to teach people about who's right or wrong in Iraqi war or whatever. More of the common sense should be instilled into children.
School is a minor thing for such education. Parents can play a much greater role teaching their children to save more of their money. Societies like Japan have high savings rates.
High savings rates are just one side of the story. By having more saving and less saving, lots of societies troubles such as retirement could be alleviated by a tremendous degree.
Then, charity could be mandatory. Employees could have an option to pay like 5% of their salary to charities(tax-exempt), with employers MATCHING that amount. They might not give to charities. Fine, they have a familiy to provide for. The employer however, would get to pay the charities. For example, 5% of average EBITDA and cash flow(otherwise, people will invest the companies earnings and other tricks to have negative earnings and pay no charities). Then, for every big public company, here's my idea. They pay a portion proportional to their market capitalization. And, they pay the other portion matching with the CEO's salary! Plus, the contributions are shareholder designated, so the CEO's favourite charity does not get the payments. That would be a great way to get corporations to start paying, and CEO's would think twice before paying theirselves obscenely(we'll make other adjustments to make some CEO's less rich, such as using truely independent directors{those that have a small amount of their income from the company and have a high equity interest or credit interest in the company} to see that the CEO is competent, and eradicate a portion of useless corrupt CEO's that devour wealth)
Minimum wages are useless. I think in Malthus's essay on population (first edition) said that increases in minimum wage only brings about inflation(since the effect would be so huge and wide ranged). Limiting the top is much more important than raising the bottom.
And lots of health problems are due to unhealthy life habits as I've pointed out. Such people should not be given welfare, or should have a measly amount of compensation. Why should we give those people a pence anyways?

Welfare should only be used to insure a person's social and economic freedoms.

It should go towards:

universal healthcare
universal education
maximization of small business opportunities
bankruptcy coverage
deposit insurance
and insurance from fraud

I may have forgot some items but you get the idea.

Bankruptcy coverage is a joke for people who overspend. Let them rot(financially speaking)

Nice debate we have here.
First, someone mentioned insurance and Social Security. What is insurance? Something sort of as a safety net if you trigger the policy. Social Security, is for everyone who puts money into it, it's different.
And how can we make people more rational? Well, that takes a bit of work, but it can be done with school curriculum. You need to teach children from age 10 or near that what is the true meaning of an asset, a liability. And not to overconsume etc... Give them examples of people who did overconsume. The US society probably spends more money on DARE programs than on teaching their next generation not to over spend(it would ruin the capitalists but then it is still a better place for tax money) You do not need to most modernized schools, what you need to less politics in schools. You do not need to teach people about who's right or wrong in Iraqi war or whatever. More of the common sense should be instilled into children.
School is a minor thing for such education. Parents can play a much greater role teaching their children to save more of their money. Societies like Japan have high savings rates.
High savings rates are just one side of the story. By having more saving and less saving, lots of societies troubles such as retirement could be alleviated by a tremendous degree.
Then, charity could be mandatory. Employees could have an option to pay like 5% of their salary to charities(tax-exempt), with employers MATCHING that amount. They might not give to charities. Fine, they have a familiy to provide for. The employer however, would get to pay the charities. For example, 5% of average EBITDA and cash flow(otherwise, people will invest the companies earnings and other tricks to have negative earnings and pay no charities). Then, for every big public company, here's my idea. They pay a portion proportional to their market capitalization. And, they pay the other portion matching with the CEO's salary! Plus, the contributions are shareholder designated, so the CEO's favourite charity does not get the payments. That would be a great way to get corporations to start paying, and CEO's would think twice before paying theirselves obscenely(we'll make other adjustments to make some CEO's less rich, such as using truely independent directors{those that have a small amount of their income from the company and have a high equity interest or credit interest in the company} to see that the CEO is competent, and eradicate a portion of useless corrupt CEO's that devour wealth)
Minimum wages are useless. I think in Malthus's essay on population (first edition) said that increases in minimum wage only brings about inflation(since the effect would be so huge and wide ranged). Limiting the top is much more important than raising the bottom.
And lots of health problems are due to unhealthy life habits as I've pointed out. Such people should not be given welfare, or should have a measly amount of compensation. Why should we give those people a pence anyways?

Regarding the sorry state of public education in America...agreed.

Involuntary charity is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? And how would it be enforced? It's probably easier to just do the same thing through taxes. Otherwise, you would have a whole bunch of "front groups" pop up claiming to be charities but not really doing anything except storing/laundering money for the rich.

I agree that CEOs are obscenely paid.

Regarding minimum wages, they are not completely useless based upon the rantings of one philosopher and a cadre of hand-waving "economists" who can rationalize any policy they want to because it will benefit *their* pocketbook. Raising the minimum from $5.15 to $51.50 would have a massive inflationary effect; I'm not quite that stupid. However, raising it to, say $8 per hour would only raise the price of most items by a only few cents, considering that even fast food joints pay more than minimum now anyways. Though it might mean Wal-Mart only makes $9 billion instead of $10 billion in profits. Ooooh, how sad. :rolleyes:

You still haven't answered my question about how exactly you intend to administer a policy that denies healthcare based upon lifestyle habits. Are you willing to put up with the snooping into your diet and your exercise habits that would be required to differentiate between health problems caused by a lack of personal responsibility and health problems that cannot be traced to personal irresponsibility?

Regarding your stance on bankruptcy, the vast majority of bankruptcies in the United States are due to either job loss or catastrophic medical debt. You might want to do some research before you deny the right to file bankruptcy to everyone because one or two percent of bankruptcy filers abuse the system.

Involuntary charity would not be bad, since the charities would be share-holder designated. Which literally means that many people get to chose who to donate to. They get to donate to charities which they like. Taxes aren't curing too much of societies inequality anyways, which means the government can't deploy tax money too well(spending too much on the system itself). Why not let charities have a chance?
To monitor people's health would be tricky, but it would at least provide freedom. later

There's no garantee about the usefulness of charity organisations in providing FULL welfare services. People need more than just bread to survive. They need money for shelter. They need money to find another job (and when I was looking for a part time job, I found that expensive)

Involuntary charity would not be bad, since the charities would be share-holder designated. Which literally means that many people get to chose who to donate to. They get to donate to charities which they like. Taxes aren't curing too much of societies inequality anyways, which means the government can't deploy tax money too well(spending too much on the system itself). Why not let charities have a chance?
To monitor people's health would be tricky, but it would at least provide freedom. later

In Canada it works fairly well (I won't say perfectly); in the United States it doesn't work so well because we blow half our federal budget on defense and even more on corporate welfare/subsidies.

Well, to continue.
I believe that the people should have the right to make their own choices when consuming(e.g. having an unhealthy unbalanced diet, with lots of junk food) but only after they have had the knowledge that what they do is bad.
In other words, even though such a thing is bad for them, they are still allowed to be able to make a choice to do so.
But, if they have that choice, then they must pay the price of their own actions. So if they get some chronic disease resulting from such a habit, then they would have to pay all the fees, and not society, which is what I'm saying.
But then, how should we monitor that? Maybe we could forget monitoring(would conflict with the first creed of almost full individual freedom{guaranteed you do not harm anyone too seriously[taking their job or unemploying an employee may hurt, but let's exclude that here]} though it's hard to see where that is in the US now) and heavily subsidize hospitals with our tax money, and run the hospital like a utility government regulated business. This would limit its profits, so there would be less higher pricing for the patients.
And we have to force drug manufacturers to disclose the cost of their drugs, so we could limit their profit as well. They would still make a big profit from their patent, but a much more limited one.
We could limit corporate profits then, and benifit the average prole.
Perhaps I can think of a way to know if a patient has a certain bad habit or not. We could check his blood(high cholesterol etc). Maybe we could let him file such forms with his nearby hospital(so we can exclude him from getting any compensation and we can keep the government out of this. Though under my proposed government subsidized regulating utility like hospital, it does seem hard.)
A more easier and direct way would be to limit the profits and growth of the junk food/fast food business(now, let's wonder the probability of that), or force them to disclose what they sell, where it comes from, how is that made. And you can counter and encourage people to eat more healthy foods by unsubsidizing syrup and so industries, and subsidize vegetable farmers, or make veggies cheaper so that the average worker can buy a lot of them without using a substantial portion of his income, and the average broke student can do so as well.
Well, you would need to reform the agricultural industry as well... Encourage eating of veggies, discourage over-eating of meat.
Simple to say... But there's a problem. There are thousands of industrialists waiting with tens of billions of dollars as a wall to prevent us from doing that.
I don't think we, as the average prole, would be able to fully change that... We can do a more moderate revision of the system though.

Well, to continue.
I believe that the people should have the right to make their own choices when consuming(e.g. having an unhealthy unbalanced diet, with lots of junk food) but only after they have had the knowledge that what they do is bad.
In other words, even though such a thing is bad for them, they are still allowed to be able to make a choice to do so.
But, if they have that choice, then they must pay the price of their own actions. So if they get some chronic disease resulting from such a habit, then they would have to pay all the fees, and not society, which is what I'm saying.
But then, how should we monitor that? Maybe we could forget monitoring(would conflict with the first creed of almost full individual freedom{guaranteed you do not harm anyone too seriously[taking their job or unemploying an employee may hurt, but let's exclude that here]} though it's hard to see where that is in the US now) and heavily subsidize hospitals with our tax money, and run the hospital like a utility government regulated business. This would limit its profits, so there would be less higher pricing for the patients.
And we have to force drug manufacturers to disclose the cost of their drugs, so we could limit their profit as well. They would still make a big profit from their patent, but a much more limited one.
We could limit corporate profits then, and benifit the average prole.

Hmm...sounds like that eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil socialism (well not quite but almost), esp. the part about subsidies and cost disclosures ;)

(Not that that's a bad thing of course. :D )

Perhaps I can think of a way to know if a patient has a certain bad habit or not. We could check his blood(high cholesterol etc). Maybe we could let him file such forms with his nearby hospital(so we can exclude him from getting any compensation and we can keep the government out of this. Though under my proposed government subsidized regulating utility like hospital, it does seem hard.)
A more easier and direct way would be to limit the profits and growth of the junk food/fast food business(now, let's wonder the probability of that), or force them to disclose what they sell, where it comes from, how is that made. And you can counter and encourage people to eat more healthy foods by unsubsidizing syrup and so industries, and subsidize vegetable farmers, or make veggies cheaper so that the average worker can buy a lot of them without using a substantial portion of his income, and the average broke student can do so as well.
Well, you would need to reform the agricultural industry as well... Encourage eating of veggies, discourage over-eating of meat.
Simple to say... But there's a problem. There are thousands of industrialists waiting with tens of billions of dollars as a wall to prevent us from doing that.
I don't think we, as the average prole, would be able to fully change that... We can do a more moderate revision of the system though.

Blood tests won't necessarily work. Let's use a blood pressure test. Junk food is coorelated with high blood pressure, right? Well, so are lots of other things. High blood pressure can indicate prolonged stress just as much as it can indicate a bad diet.

Furthermore, a few years ago, I had my BP measured at 80/52, which is about that of a conditioned athlete, even though my diet and exercise habits both sux0r3d at the time.

Now, you mentioned cholesterol, and I'm not a doctor, but I would imagine that cholestorol could also be affected by things other than a responsible diet or lack thereof.

Oh, and people could easily lie on the disclosure forms that you propose.

I definitely do agree with you in that we need to stop subsidizing this damned corporate welfare. McDonald's can survive without tax breaks. Archer Daniels Midland can survive without tax breaks. Wal-Mart can survive without tax breaks. Monsanto can survive without tax breaks. And all produce or sell unhealthy and almost exclusively industrialized, processed food.