{"id":753,"date":"2024-05-27T10:15:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T10:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/05\/27\/a-govt-subsidy-for-seniors-uscf-dues\/"},"modified":"2024-05-27T10:15:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T10:15:49","slug":"a-govt-subsidy-for-seniors-uscf-dues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/05\/27\/a-govt-subsidy-for-seniors-uscf-dues\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gov’t Subsidy for Seniors’ USCF Dues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Yetman reports<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I don\u2019t know if this is a new high or a new low, but it is something I\u2019ve never seen before. Somehow, USCF has managed to find a way to get the U.S. government to pay membership fees for senior members. That\u2019s right, Uncle Sam wants you to play chess so bad, he\u2019s willing to pay for it. Here are the details:<\/span><\/p>\n

Uncle Sam pays…of course.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Normally, I would applaud USCF finding such a strange niche and using it to promote USCF membership. But I\u2019m having qualms.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first concern is this: whenever the government subsidizes something, the subsidy distorts the free-market value. The sky-high cost of college tuition is such an example. USCF membership for seniors will go up, and that will lead, inevitably, to corruption. Also, you subsidize something, you get more of it: how many of these new USCF senior members will never play in a tournament? They will have full voting rights; I\u2019m chary about letting people vote for things they have no stake in at all. Do we want USCF elections to be decided by people who could not care less about tournament chess? Oh wait\u2014we already have that problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

My second concern is the inescapable mission-creep of such things. How long before we have subsidies for other classes of players, like women and children? What then?<\/span><\/p>\n

The leadership of USCF is already pretty far away from the traditional tournament player. This will only make it worse.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You're spot on, Ed.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Yetman reports: I don\u2019t know if this is a new high or a new low, but it is something I\u2019ve never seen before. Somehow, USCF has managed to find a way to get the U.S. government to pay membership fees for senior members. That\u2019s right, Uncle Sam wants you to play chess so bad, … Continue reading “A Gov’t Subsidy for Seniors’ USCF Dues”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess","category-political-ponerology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}