Would you please stop using HN for flamewar and posting unsubstantive comments? We ban accounts that do that and you've unfortunately done quite a bit already.
Emotional platitudes such as “helping people” are not useful. It is obvious that if I vote for my city to provide mental health and housing to anyone that needs it, my city will quickly go bankrupt. Same for my state. It’s the same situation with providing taxpayer funded healthcare.
I know that we need the full weight of the federal government to attack this problem, so I support and vote for candidates who I think can best help us get there federally.
Did you read the OPs argument? It’s not that “helping people leads to helping more people” is a problem. It’s how many people can a single city (particularly one as housing constrained as SF) afford to help.
Suppose you want to help people and decide that donating 20% of your after tax salary helping people is reasonable.
Instead, offer anyone who comes to your door in need $1000. How long will you be able to keep it up?
