Hacker News Reader

Comment by imgabe | Hacker News Reader

The Us government budget is over 4 trillion dollars. Why not use $100 billion of that to house the poor?

These aren't mutally exclusive. Plenty of government programs are still underfunded, and plenty of the rich aren't paying their fair debts to society.

That's not the point. The comment implies all it would take to "house the poor" is to spend $100 billion. The government spends that amount many times over. Spending $100 billion is not a big deal. If that were sufficient to end homelessness, it would be done already.

Also, since when is confiscating 100% of someone's wealth, "paying their fair debt"? Do you happen to have any personal wealth? If so, why haven't you donated it to the government yet, as fairness dictates?

You nicely came to the conclusion that homelessness is indeed a political choice.

Please detail exactly how the $100 billion should be spent to end homelessness.

If we assume, say, 600K homeless, that gives us a $166K budget per person.

(If we somehow spend that, per person, our main challenge would be keeping it secret so as not to disincentivize people who have to work for $166K; we need them to pay taxes.)

Do you think homeless people are mostly homeless because of the lack of a house?

Repeal all local zoning codes and spend the rest on lawyers defending the SCOTUS case.

And/or repeal the Faircloth Amendment and give it to HUD.

Its a political choice in so far that we have artificially inflated home prices by not allowing enough homes to be build

It occurs to this humble Internet peasant that we might do both.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com