Should a government be responsible for providing it's people with basic necessities?

[letuswaltzforthedead]

Should a government give free food, medicine/healthcare, housing, etc to it's people? Why or why not?

Yes

No

Mostly no but in some occasions

With most things except some occasions

[Anonymous]

Everything requires creativity and work to provide including "basic needs". For billions of years all life on this planet spent much if not most of their time working to provide themselfs food.
For perhaps as little as millions of years our ancestors worked to provide shelter so that we could live in non-tropical environments.

For only a few thousand years did we work invent significant medical tecnoligy for which we now work to provide ourselves with.

So as you can see nothing is free, everything requires a great deal of work, and creativity to not only provide but invent and improve upon.

Indeed pre-Biden (its a bit more now) Food cost between 6.4% and 56.4% of our time & resources depending on your economy and occupation.
This is of course an enormous improvement over most life on Earth which spends as much as 99% of their time getting food.
This is even a great improvement over just 40 years ago for humans prior to the green revolution.

Theses revolutionary improvements actually came as a direct result of innovative individuals figure out new ways to more efficiently produced more food over millions of years. Indeed we are not even close to being done in the food innovation business for today there idea for multiplying food production many times more with sea farming.

Healthcare by contrast is a very new service with far more innovation needed to vastly improve it.

The point is thee innovations only really happen when there is something to gain from the individual inventing and developing the innovation. By guaranteeing everyone the fruits of said innovation the problem of sourcing the labor and creativity becomes a State issue to which there is little drive and even less creativity beyond the bruit force which is the state.

The USSR could not feed itself not because it lacked farm land,(it had as much as anyone if not far more). They couldn't feed themselfs because their goverment leaders and chosen scientist didn't have the ideas to solve the problems of production nor motivate people to work honestly if they gained nothing from that work.

So no letting goverment run any industry even ones as old and critical as food production would invariably be an unmitigated disaster over the long run, stagnating that industry until a problem their leaders can't imagine a solution to arises.

[HighValue]

No. The government is there to provide national/military defense and emergency services and the judicial branch is there to resolve disputes. That is what our taxes are supposed to pay for.

The government isn't supposed to choose winners and losers in the economy by giving bailouts, by paying off media to support their views/agenda, or provide free housing, medical care, etc.

People are supposed to work and earn what they get in life and the government is supposed to mostly stay out of the way.

[YollyM]

Yes that's literally one of the reasons governments were meant to exist for amongst other things.

[Tyrael]

Healthcare for all is essential and should be provided.

Housing provided to people who have fallen on hard times or who are unable to support themselves is also essential. No one should be living on the street in a first world country.

You need to earn your way in life. Providing food in the form of food banks for emergencies isn't a terrible idea but that's handled by charities usually.

[TroyDT]

No. The primary purpose of government is to protect the people and their property. Also, nothing that costs someone's labor and/or resources is "free."

[blondfrog]

Well in Americas case yes because that wouldn't even make it socalist country because we pay taxes. And high amounts of it. So its more about being given what is rightfully ours.

[MiamiMadness]

Do you like supporting strangers?

Me Neither.

[Imsmurter1]

Create a roughly equal ground for everyone to stand on.

[Anonymous]

b no way... go work for it