To frame this discussion as a binary debate about affordability is, I suggest, a dead end. Rather we should see that what is needed is a practical, doable and reasonable system of taxation that aimed at eliminating the part of the picture that is under water. We need a fair floor.

CRUNCH

On the right under water.

A just system will eliminate that and leave the straight, horizontal line as the floor below which no income falls. That floor will move up and down a bit according to the capacity of the world to achieve this elementary act of justice.

Achieving this aim would, I believe, eliminate many other costs we now incur. Today some profit from the inability of those deemed poor and weak to function.

Consider a world without a war on drugs, without the jailing of the nonviolent, without charities based on precisely the availability of abused exemplars.

Reason has no purchase on reality. It must be turned into a communication that can sway assent. It would be well to at least agree on what the problem is and what a solution might be.