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zh_13 t1_iypt2vg wrote

I don’t care if she has mental problems or drug problems or both

Lock her up and force treatment, these ppl should not be on the street

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largeroastbeef t1_iyq8m53 wrote

Tax payers don’t want to pay for it. Maybe one day we will go back to a pre regan America with mental health hospitals but right now no one wants to increase taxes to pay that bill.

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JIMMYJAWN t1_iyqocvm wrote

They didn’t lower taxes when Regan killed those hospitals. The money got spent on arms proliferation or whatever. The trick is to take money from somewhere else and put it back into public services.

But yes, convincing the feds to do that will be damn near impossible and the ‘easiest’ thing would be to do it at a municipal level and increase the city budget by raising taxes.

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MeEvilBob t1_iyqplp8 wrote

There's never been more than a tiny handful of congressmen and senators who come from a working class family in a rough area. "The feds" are mostly rich suburban white guys who believe that all homeless people are only living on the street because they're too lazy to get a job.

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mustang__1 t1_iyrhgtk wrote

He lowered funding back to where it was just a year or two prior. He didn't end it.

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Darius_Banner t1_iyqxjcu wrote

The stupidity is that it quite literally costs taxpayers more by doing nothing in the long run.

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Bartleby_TheScrivene t1_iyqx89j wrote

I'd rather pay for asylums and sanitarium than for wider interstates and suburb septa projects but that's just me.

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ROBOT_KK t1_iyqzlaq wrote

Or damn prison system that does nothing about actual rehabilitation.

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Bartleby_TheScrivene t1_iyr1va4 wrote

Personally, it's not the prison system that's broken. It's that after you get out the stigma is so high that you cannot live a normal life.

If someone's debt to society is paid, then it shouldn't be the business of employers or whatnot.

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Doktor_Konrad t1_iyrbdgj wrote

That sounds good on paper but then arsonists get hired as gasoline attendants, thieves for security…

And then Michael Vick starts walking your dog.

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Bartleby_TheScrivene t1_iyrbz2c wrote

I've already been banned by reddit once for saying what thieves punishment should be. I'm not falling for this one again.

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IrishWave t1_iyrb6g8 wrote

The issue isn't just the spending. Those hospitals / asylums only made sense when combined with laws that gave the government free reign to lock up anyone suspected of being mentally ill (aka homeless).

People like this aren't going to voluntarily check themselves into institutions.

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ElenorWoods t1_iyr5t84 wrote

Lol taxpayers will pay to lock her up with or without treatment.

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_token_black t1_iyrr6uv wrote

Fuck Ronald Reagan. All my homies hate Ronald Reagan.

Since we're not on /r/politics (where you can't dance on graves), I'd love to take a post Taco Bell dump on his.

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canihavemymoneyback t1_iysfvvm wrote

They don’t have to raise taxes. Take the money from whatever failure programs are running at the moment. Because you know there must be some agency whose job it is to deal with mentally ill criminals. Right?

There must be someone who is charged with making it safe to walk in center city in broad daylight? Hmmmm. What would their job title be? Hmmmmm. Take the money and redistribute it.
Just don’t call it defunding. Find a better word.

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BadDesignMakesMeSad t1_iyrnmad wrote

Don’t even need to increase taxes to do that. Feds could close tax loopholes and make rich people pay their fair share of taxes and that would pay for it. maybe take a fraction of the overblown military budget. Or they could just print more money. It’s ridiculous that this nationwide crisis is pushed down to states and municipalities that are usually already strapped for cash.

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zh_13 t1_iyrw1pn wrote

I mean I agree with everything else except print more money, that’s a terrible idea and what leads to inflation

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BadDesignMakesMeSad t1_iys00zj wrote

Not if you invest the money in things that help the economy. It’s certainly more risky than than the other methods but it’s something. I’m mostly just pointing out that the feds for sure could solve this issue if they wanted to without raising taxes. They just don’t want to

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ScienceWasLove t1_iyqtlfw wrote

Clinton was president for 8 years. Obama was president for 8 years. Biden has been in office for 2 years.

Stop blaming Reagan for policies that closed dated/corrupt facilities that were abusing patients. I know its popular on Reddit, but that was 40 years ago.

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Biz_Rito t1_iyr2lq3 wrote

If a roommate spilled milk on the carpet, and my other roommates didn't clean it up, they'd be asshats alright, but I'd still put the blame at the feet of the sonnovabitch who spilled it in the first place

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Indiana_Jawnz t1_iyrt719 wrote

Only Mental hospitals didn't all close (spill) under Reagan. They have continually and steadily closed throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and continue to close today.

It's more like your one roommate spilled milk and then your other roommates all came in and knocked over more glasses of milk, and then nobody cleaned it up.

Haverford State closed in 1996, Allentown in 2010, Norristown continues to shrink.

It's not just the federal government either, state governments didn't (and don't) want to keep paying for these institutions. Since the advent of Psychopharmacology state hospital populations have continually shrunk since 1955 when hospital populations peaked (iirc give or take a few years).

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Vague_Disclosure t1_iyse0xk wrote

Not to mention during Reagan's presidency Democrats controlled the House and the last two years of his second term they controlled both the House and Senate. I don't feel like looking up actual vote counts but there had to be some bipartisanship to end the asylum programs.

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