The Left battled mightily and won in the '70s and '80s to have mental patients out walking the streets instead of being institutionalized. What the ~fuck~ did you people EXPECT to happen? Hello? McFly?
Citation? How is it "the Left" when Regan was president and pushed for the defunding of our mental health facilities.
Although not perfect, the Mental Health Systems Act [of 1980] responded to these problems. For the first time since the National Institute of Mental Health became part of NIH in 1949, mental health was front and center in federal policy.
Then came Ronald Reagan. Within a month, the Office of Management Budget announced it would curtail the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), phase out training of clinicians, interrupt research, and eliminate services. Cutbacks to staff followed; chaos ensued.
Combined with a sharp rise in homelessness during the 1980s, Ronald Reagan pursued a policy toward the treatment of mental illness that satisfied special interest groups and the demands of the business community, but failed to address the issue: the treatment of mental illness.
The Ugly: the closing of mental health hospitals in California and across the United States. Is it any wonder that California seems to have all of the crazy homeless people? State mental hospitals were taken away by Governor Reagan in the seventies, and federal mental health programs were later taken away by President Reagan in the eighties.
When Ronald Reagan was governor of California he systematically began closing down mental hospitals, later as president he would cut aid for federally-funded community mental health programs. It is not a coincidence that the homeless populations in the state of California grew in the seventies and eighties. The people were put out on the street when mental hospitals started to close all over the state.
See, what I read from what you say here is that if income was distributed more equitably then taxes would be spread more equitably. You can't deny that for the past at least 20 years the gap between the rich and poor, or even rich and middle class, has been growing at an alarming pace. If wages went up and people made more then they would pay more into taxes. So, the fact that the highest 10% pays 55% of taxes tells me that they're making at least 55% of the income (if not far more since, as this article points out, the very wealthy have ways of hiding income and shuffling money through loopholes reducing their tax rate).
I think we should close the loopholes so the very rich have to actually pay the tax rates that they're supposed to. This would mean they'd probably pay a ridiculous amount more in taxes, which I think would be great since I'm not super rich, but which might be seen as a problem to... I dono, the very rich's apologists? What it might also do is have the effect of making the very rich spread the wealth on their own, perhaps via higher wages to avoid paying those higher taxes. I don't exactly know how rich people spend their money actually. Investing in things is good, but investing in the middle class is better. Unless you want to continue the class warfare that's been going on.
Slashdot Mirror
The Left battled mightily and won in the '70s and '80s to have mental patients out walking the streets instead of being institutionalized. What the ~fuck~ did you people EXPECT to happen? Hello? McFly?
Citation? How is it "the Left" when Regan was president and pushed for the defunding of our mental health facilities.
http://www.miwatch.org/2011/02/_ronald_reagan_and_mental.html
Although not perfect, the Mental Health Systems Act [of 1980] responded to these problems. For the first time since the National Institute of Mental Health became part of NIH in 1949, mental health was front and center in federal policy. Then came Ronald Reagan. Within a month, the Office of Management Budget announced it would curtail the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), phase out training of clinicians, interrupt research, and eliminate services. Cutbacks to staff followed; chaos ensued.
http://sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas_d.html
Combined with a sharp rise in homelessness during the 1980s, Ronald Reagan pursued a policy toward the treatment of mental illness that satisfied special interest groups and the demands of the business community, but failed to address the issue: the treatment of mental illness.
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/135/reagan.html
The Ugly: the closing of mental health hospitals in California and across the United States. Is it any wonder that California seems to have all of the crazy homeless people? State mental hospitals were taken away by Governor Reagan in the seventies, and federal mental health programs were later taken away by President Reagan in the eighties. When Ronald Reagan was governor of California he systematically began closing down mental hospitals, later as president he would cut aid for federally-funded community mental health programs. It is not a coincidence that the homeless populations in the state of California grew in the seventies and eighties. The people were put out on the street when mental hospitals started to close all over the state.
So... how is this the fault of "the Left" again?
See, what I read from what you say here is that if income was distributed more equitably then taxes would be spread more equitably. You can't deny that for the past at least 20 years the gap between the rich and poor, or even rich and middle class, has been growing at an alarming pace. If wages went up and people made more then they would pay more into taxes. So, the fact that the highest 10% pays 55% of taxes tells me that they're making at least 55% of the income (if not far more since, as this article points out, the very wealthy have ways of hiding income and shuffling money through loopholes reducing their tax rate). I think we should close the loopholes so the very rich have to actually pay the tax rates that they're supposed to. This would mean they'd probably pay a ridiculous amount more in taxes, which I think would be great since I'm not super rich, but which might be seen as a problem to... I dono, the very rich's apologists? What it might also do is have the effect of making the very rich spread the wealth on their own, perhaps via higher wages to avoid paying those higher taxes. I don't exactly know how rich people spend their money actually. Investing in things is good, but investing in the middle class is better. Unless you want to continue the class warfare that's been going on.