Means testing requires an administrative state and the collection of a lot of very gameable data. I'm pretty sure it would cost less to mail the check to Bezos than it would to try to exclude him in order to keep the money only in the hands of the needy.
2025-08-19 14:08:34
To piggy back on JanieM's criticism there: It has obviously not occurred to him -- or if it has, he declines to believe it -- that "benefitting someone in some way" might well benefit everyone else too, even if only indirectly. But then, some people don't seem to think that a happier, healthier populace could possibly be good for everyone. (For what definition of "good," he might ask...)
The general sense that I get of him and many other libertarianish folks is that every time they look at a public good, they start trying to convert it into smaller piles of private goods for which they can find deserving owners. It's the oft-quoted Thatcher bit about there being no such thing as society.
Means testing requires an administrative state and the collection of a lot of very gameable data. I'm pretty sure it would cost less to mail the check to Bezos than it would to try to exclude him in order to keep the money only in the hands of the needy.
To piggy back on JanieM's criticism there: It has obviously not occurred to him -- or if it has, he declines to believe it -- that "benefitting someone in some way" might well benefit everyone else too, even if only indirectly. But then, some people don't seem to think that a happier, healthier populace could possibly be good for everyone. (For what definition of "good," he might ask...)
The general sense that I get of him and many other libertarianish folks is that every time they look at a public good, they start trying to convert it into smaller piles of private goods for which they can find deserving owners. It's the oft-quoted Thatcher bit about there being no such thing as society.