ferd,
“Welfare creates generations of institutionalized poverty” is just a rephrasing of what I said. Preaching to the choir here.
But I must disagree on a limited basis that redistribution NEVER lifts anyone out of poverty. Taxes can properly be used to lift people out of poverty, when they are narrowly targeted towards those who cannot support themselves. Redistribution in that limited sense is not anathema to conservatism. That is why conservative welfare reform did not take the form of stopping all welfare payments.
For instance, a woman with children whose husband is killed for instance, can receive benefits that will keep (or lift) her and her children out of abject poverty. As time passes, she is expected to do what she can to work to support herself and her children, with transfer payments from taxes paid by others easing the way. Or an individual who is injured and incapable of caring for himself (disease, true disability) can be eligible for SSI payments (another redistributive program) during his period of disability.
I don’t know a single conservative who would object to those types of targeted, limited redistribution of tax receipts. Private charity could handle it better, but the progressives have so warped the system that that is not always practical today.
But that is not the type of tax the progressives are urging when it comes to energy (or any of the other taxes they are currently desperate to impose). So I agree with you 98%.