What is the difference?

[Gumba Masta]

Would someone be as kind and explain to me if there is a difference between getting subsidies and getting welfare and if there are any, what they are?

[MrBogosity]

Well, y'see, welfare is when money is take from the people who earned it and given to someone else who is deemed to be either more needy, more deserving, or able to use it better. Whereas subsidies are when money is take from the people who earned it and given to someone else who is deemed to be either more needy, more deserving, or able to use it better.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

[The Late Andrew Ryan]

Well, y'see, welfare is when money is take from the people who earned it and given to someone else who is deemed to be either more needy, more deserving, or able to use it better. Whereas subsidies are when money is take from the people who earned it and given to someone else who is deemed to be either more needy, more deserving, or able to use it better.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

Lol
Subsudies are "sold" to the tax payer through the excuse that whoever the subsudy is given to will actually produce something so of course there's no way they can get funding except by stealing from people... While welfare is "sold" because needy people are needy and so we should steal in order to give the things they need.
So basically subsudies are supposed to be kind of like a loan, while welfare is kind of like a gift. Although I hate to bastardize both of those perfectly good words in such a context.

[MrBogosity]

It reminds me of the Tax Increment Financing they railroaded into the North Carolina Constitution a few years ago. Basically, the idea is that local governments can go into debt without a referendum if the economic return on them is greater. It was sold as a way of stimulating local economies.

But, if these investments gave a return, why would we need the government to make them?

I've also heard this argument used with welfare, by the way; that when the people get off welfare they go to more productive jobs, returning the welfare investment.

[Gumba Masta]

That's fantastic, I always wanted to be subsidized

[Travis Retriever]

@Shane:  "Welfare Investment" is an oxymoron.

[valvatica]

Speaking of welfare, Gumba got me going so I thought I'd share.

As I've revealed before, I had worked many jobs before becoming unemployed, and it was against every nerve in my body to collect food stamps-- but I had to begrudgingly do it. Note: I never collected unemployment, just food stamps. I had no other support at the time. I WANTED to work. I was on the job hunt every single day. Thanks to the minimum wage, I wasn't able to get a job for less pay even if I wanted it. It also f'ed me big time on my tax return.

The same agency that issued me my food stamps later had the nerve to send me some big packet of papers claiming that because they "overpaid" me in food stamps, I owed them $572. Yes, you read that right. Every single paper in that packet had nice accurate printouts of numbers and graphs and shit, all stating on the bottom "_______ (my name) filed correctly with ________ (name of my former employer)." Just... incompetence on so many levels. This was sent by an agency called the "Overpayment Recovery Unit" (all of this was in Oregon when I lived there at the time). I know, they sound like bounty hunters with such a cowabunga name like that. I called them to explain all these discrepancies (I even remembered the name of the 20-year-old blonde chick who was the agent who gave me the food stamps and figured out all the math and junk to begin with) and the agency still held that even though they fucked up, I STILL had to pay. So I told them I dispute it, and that when that happens the agency will get back to me to settle it somehow. I never heard from them, so I called a few more times to make sure that they're indeed getting the process going and they said they were. And? They never got back to me. Boy, they were reeeeeeeeeal serious about collecting that money.

This kind of government incompetence is just mindblowing. But like someone said in a comment about the NHS on Shane's latest videos: It's government, so by their very nature they can't admit when they've screwed up.

[Travis Retriever]

Wow...so much for government "not being for profit".