To be so intrigued by America?

[hollyblueivy]

AIBU to be so intrigued by America and just how vastly different it is to the UK despite both being rich modern nations?

Trump features a lot in the UK news and it has made me look into why the US seem so uncaring. Their systems to help the vulnerable are so different to ours. They have no right to housing so many can easily risk facing homelessness. With no national health service, access to healthcare is much more difficult and expensive, pushing people into deprivation even if they are working.

They don’t seem to have the same socialist heart as the UK and it gives a very much dog eat dog and every man for themselves culture.

I don’t think I fully appreciated this before. Anyone else?

The thing that shocks me most in USA is the property tax . The concept to pay yearly based on the price of your property repeatedly is shocking

People here do get help with housing, food, phones, and healthcare.

It’s the equivalent of council tax, that’s all

Why would anyone think a church would give out formula? Surely they would refer people to a food bank.

Well 4 churches and a mosque didn’t turn her down - some people obviously thought they could find a way to help a mother feed a baby.

Property taxes and business taxes are levied by counties and municipalities to pay for all sorts of local schools, services, and resources. As in the UK, you get what you pay for. Perhaps Americans are more used to the idea that the money to pay for all the services they use has to come from somewhere, amd because of the federal / state/ county/ township/ municipality structure, local control is guaranteed. People vote for the county assessor and all of the other officials whose competence makes a difference in their lives, and therefore these officials are accountable. There is a huge degree of local control over the purse strings in the US.

Property taxes provide what residents are willing to pay for on local and county level - local libraries, great SEN provision, police, schools, parks and park district services, public pools, tennis courts, basketball courts, beach volleyball courts, playgrounds, forestry/ tree care, animal control, public health department, streets and sanitation, and building code enforcement, and on the county level water reclamation/ sewage treatment, sheriff dept, courts, public health departments, county jails, county hospitals, and much, much more.

People pay for what benefits them and what benefits others. Ultimately, a municipality that boasts great public services and schools and has a good reputation for public safety is one where your home will likely appreciate in value.

No because it’s much more

Until 1776, when the thirteen colonies became independent of Britain, that 'light touch' administration of the colonies meant that slavery flourished for over 150 years in what became the United States. This was a time when the vast majority of immigrants to the US came from Britain.

The abolition of slavery didn't stop mill owners of Britain from importing American cotton for many decades afterwards. Britain had its own alternative sources of raw materials in the remainder of its empire too. The looting of the empire remains a major part of the grudge borne by former colonies.

The money made by enslavers went a long way toward building the economy of Britain.

It is but I was just simplifying it for someone who doesn’t live in the States. It is very broadly the equivalent of council tax but pays for different things. My point was it’s not an extra ‘house value’ tax on top of everything else.

But the point is that’s not a very “Christian” way to look at it, is it?

I don't know why any university would rest on its laurels when it comes to securing its own funding, particularly now that we've all seen what trump is capable of when it comes to academic freedom and federal funding. An independent university sector is vital to the robustness and integrity of research.

The inability of British university administrators to think clearly when it comes to money has led to a crisis in British third level education.

There is enough tax revenue for SNAP, medicaid, and medicare, and the other quality of life support the federal government has provided for many decades now. Money is not the problem. The current iteration of the GOP just has an ideological aversion to the idea of community.

Either they have cans of formula sitting in the church office or they don't.

I suspect the point of the 'called 50 churches' spiel was to bash churches. The level of support throughout the US that is offered by organisations such as Catholic Charities is massive. Catholic Charities in Chicago alone feeds meals to over 30,000 people per week and stocks food banks that serve approximately 55,000 per week, in addition to thousands of meals on wheels weekly.

Even in deeply rural regions where Catholics are very much in the minority and their neighbours think the Pope is the antichrist, Catholic dioceses and parishes provide for the pressing practical needs of the poor - paying utility bills, providing direct food assistance, diapers, clothing, etc.

I don't follow why for Americans it's still seen as completely normal, ( ignoring religious beliefs) for boys to be circumcised. Seems so behind the times. Why put your child through it? I don't get it.

The GOP has been trying to cut SNAP since well before Trump. Their whole ideology is small government and "nothing for free"

What was it Reagan said. " The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

It could be argued that Repubs are not adverse to funding the elite universities is because they want their kids to go. All this legacy admissions and all that.

And a nice beefy donation also helps with admissions. Trump himself benefitted from that.

It's a system that is very open to corruption.

One of my DDs used to have a Saturday morning job in my parish office, and every weekend she spent a lot of her time dealing with people who rang the doorbell looking for money, etc. The majority of them were junkies or chancers. The parish had a leaflet with numbers, addresses, and opening hours of all the local agencies and charities, and the local police handled people experiencing mental health issues (who also wanted the teenager in the church office to help them) with discretion.

DD developed a good eye for people genuinely in need, and the parish had an arrangement with a local supermarket to provide specific items, which would later be billed to the parish (or more often written off). The supermarket would provide baby formula, diapers, milk, sanpro, peanut butter, bread - simple staples, if the person in need presented a note from the parish to the customer service manager. The doorbell ringers were not given money. Actually the local police were well able to assist in the same way (because people often turned up at the police station looking for help too).

You are grossly over egging the dangers of private donations to universities. It's not a cynical plot to get the children of the rich admitted. Even very lowly institutions with mediocre academic reputations manage to far exceed the best British universities in fundraising.

Yes, the GOP has historically been very willing to promote the idea that welfare recipients are work shy spongers and need to experience more motivation to provide for their own needs, regardless of the fact that most SNAP recipients are employed, many by the likes of Walmart, a company whose owners are among the world's richest. trump is Reagan with the gloves off.

I have nothing against donations to Universities. I am not saying donations are corrupt, my view is that the US is very transactional, and massively open to corruption.The US do not even try too hard to hide it.

A company I worked for, the two founders donated to UK universities. A clock and a library.

And going by the UK press, UK academics appear to be holding their own. Covid vax, new medical treatments part funded by the NHS.

No one was crossing the plains in the dead of winter. 🙄 They would have planned their trips to get where they were going before winter set in.

The Little House books are children's stories and as such leave out the harsh realities of life in the frontier. It's romantisised and not always honest about what happened.

It's getting less common - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2025/09/johns-hopkins-study-newborn-male-circumcision-rates-in-us-dropped-between-2012-and-2022

There are ways to get abortion pills by mail in every state. The legality can be a bit tricky depending on the state. https://www.plancpills.org/

I find that really hard to believe. My son is a paramedic and they have a duty to provide emergency relief to anyone that needs it. Insurance coverage would never be a factor. That would be something delt with after the fact by hospital administration.

The other issue I can’t understand is , I don’t think any country can be called a fist world country without a national heath service . We have family in the USA and a few years ago I remeber a family member rushing home after cancer surgery because dye didn’t want to go over the allowed dets in hospital . Any bad luck and you will owe money all your life . It’s sad . Even to have a baby you must pay thousands.

What wasn't built on slavery? It was everywhere.

Are you familiar with the Ottoman Empire?

Indeed. That’s somewhat tangential to the original point, but you are right to some degree. Though the financial benefits largely stayed in the colonies. Britain was already prosperous without them. The Industrial Revolution was largely built in the backs of English and Welsh miners. But even before that, if you look at accounts of peasants in England compared with France, written by both French and English travellers in the 16th century, they commented on the stark contrast on quality of life, with English peasants having more autonomy, money, better health, better diets with access to good quality meat and even land holdings. To some extent the Industrial Revolution destroyed that. It created a middle class, but impoverished peasants. It’s a complex history.

I am not over egging the dangers of anything.

My first post on this thread was to reply to a PP where I said donations to US universities were tax deductible. So the uni gets the money rather than the tax man.

Large donations in the US are very often far from altruistic.

You went on a tangent from that, and I pointed out another aspect of these donations, legacy admissions, and basically buying students in. Corruption.

If that is a large part of their funding model, and it works, then fair enough.

I am not an academic, but dangers to academic freedom I do follow a bit. When an institution gets, and depends on, fees from PRC students for example, the CPC tries to influence what is studied. Especially in Australia.