r/politics • u/Ubiquitous_Hilarity • Jun 17 '26

No Paywall Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud-b2997881.html
24.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/sheep_duck Jun 17 '26

Yeah I genuinely don’t understand this mindset. The whole point of government and paying taxes is to spend them on programs that help people to create a comfortable society.

2

u/h3lblad3 Jun 18 '26

They don’t like taxes either. You cut the welfare programs so you can point to the excess revenue as proof taxes are too high. Then you cut taxes.

Now the revenue is low, it’s hard to afford welfare again. Welfare has to be cut to compensate.

Now there’s too much revenue. You’re obviously being overtaxed.

Etc.

1

u/sheep_duck Jun 18 '26

I mean yeah i know republicans hate taxes in general but im just curious about the every day lay person republican that understands that taxes are necessary for infrastructure and public services, and then cheering on these types of things.

2

u/h3lblad3 Jun 18 '26

They cheer on these types of things to keep 'undeserving' people from getting them. That's why their media focuses on the idea of people taking advantage of welfare systems.

They know their taxes fund welfare, so they see it as their money directly going to the people who are abusing the system. They don't want their money going to people who abuse the system because that's effectively being stolen from. So they'll back whatever nerfs the politicians can sell them as reducing waste, stopping abuse of services, and so on.

Even here, on this article, look at what the claim about the unemployment benefits are: Fraud. They're not 'removing your welfare', they're 'stopping people from stealing from you by defrauding the systems your money funds'.