While I don't want this thread to devolve into a discussion of affirmative action or reparations, I do want to respond to a couple of points that touch on that. (Btw, I've always viewed tenacity as a virtue.)
While the net capital result of 'taxing' vs 'bestowing/gifting' is the same, they are not the same actions. Besides generating revenue, taxes are used to modify behaviours. There is an inherent difference in giving someone something, vs taking less of what they have away.
I understand your conceptual framework, but let me dent it a little. As you note, "taxes are used to modify behaviours". (I have always had mixed feelings about that.) One of the methods is a tax "credit". Credits generally have the opposite effect of a deduction, in that they are more significant to those with lower incomes. Some are even "refundable", meaning one can get them even if the credit is larger than their income. That brings up a reality: all tax policy is distributional, some is just more direct than others. A credit, especially a refundable one, is a direct payment from the government to reward a behavior or condition. It is largely disguised, because it is "offset " against taxes owed. More on that in a moment.
The idea of giving, vs 'not taking away', are prime concepts in my ideological argument. As you can see I feel no need to give to specific groups in difference to others. Which again is why I do not believe in means based systems. Rather, I believe in basic policies equal for all. If we feel the need to provide a safety net (I do!), then provide a UBI.
Were we writing on a blank slate, I would likely mirror your approach - but we're not. As I've gone on at length about, the current economic condition of our society is not equal, and it cannot right itself without outside intervention. It is well and good to create an equal system for the future, but that has a tendency to lock in the status quo, in this case a status quo created by centuries of deliberate discrimination. If two runners engage in a footrace, but one gets a head start, who is most likely to "win"? In horse racing, jockeys' weights are evened out by, literally, placing weights on their saddles to make the race fair. That is what this program is about (and why "means testing" is appropriate). Rather than picking winners and losers, the idea is to have everyone start at the same point, rather than giving some a leg up.
As to the tax system, I'm in full agreement that it's skewed to benefit the wealthy and penalize the working class. That needs to be fixed. But by fixed, I mean 'fixed', not gifting capital.
Again, in a pristine world, I would agree with you, but we've been "gifting capital" for decades, even centuries. The Homestead Acts gave BILLIONS of (today's) dollars of wealth to whites, but explicitly excluded blacks. The GI bill excluded blacks from the education provided to their white peers. Social Security was originally engineered to exclude blacks from getting its benefits. All of those were direct transfers of capital from the government, and still forms the foundation of much of the wealth in today's economy. My father, son of a single mother, got his law degree on the GI Bill. Do you think that gave me a leg up in life? Many family farms are still operated on the same homesteads gifted a century or more ago (the program didn't end until 1934).
I think we also have another ideological difference. I believe government should right wrongs. It should provide for equal opportunity & equality under the law. But besides through the courts, I do not believe government should be attempting to right wrongs beyond providing equality, by further skewing in the opposite direction to move needles past the point of equality.
How do you propose righting those wrongs without catching up the disadvantaged? That's why I think this program is absolutely appropriate, and why means testing it is too.
