Posted on 07/06/2017 9:28:00 AM PDT by rktman
I have never heard any conservative economist propose a universal income, unless you simultaneously eliminate (except for certain extraordinary cases) all other forms of “welfare”, including the minimum wage. Adding universal income on top of, but not replacing, existing welfare, is a liberal idea, not a conservative one.
If this cannot be done politically, then it is a non-starter. But I would submit that if Trump proposed such a thing, then his political support would increase so dramatically that he could easily push it through. The left would have nothing left to stand on. Nobody could defend minimum wage laws (and makework programs, and urban development programs, and loan programs, etc.) if a minimum income came with it. Even the most vacuous social justice warrior would be flummoxed.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that President Trump's influence could make the U.S. Congress and every state and every county and municipality within every state eliminate its minimum wage and all its means-based assistance programs of every kind, in perpetuity. I believe that is extremely unlikely.
Even if everyone involved accepted that this is the best way to "help people," there are millions of people whose far-above-the-poverty-line incomes plus gold-plated health insurance plans plus awfully-nice pensions depend on the continuation of all these programs. Those people have time on their hands and plenty of resources to make Keeping My Job a high priority for the government entity.
Imagine trying to eliminate government-run schooling nationwide. Do you think it could happen if, tomorrow, Donald Trump decided it was his number-one priority?
I’m going to take an unpopular position: At some point, we will need to do this. In the next 100 years, robotics and AI will be sufficiently advanced to do every job a human can do, including politician.
With AI and robotics as a game-changer, there will be plenty to buy with 20,000.
I think that most people could handle their lives adequately, especially if other people kept their noses out of what individuals consider “adequate.” (My family was “in violation” for over a decade, because a baby slept in a gigantic walk-in closet. “Rules” require that all sleeping quarters have a window.)
However, our present situation features many people in a condition of “learned helplessness.” They’re not your hardy agrarian pioneers or your poor-but-determined urban working class. They’re people who have violent outbursts if a fast-food meal takes two minutes too long or the Wi-Fi connection has a blip, and they’ll say, “There’s absolutely nothing to eat around here!!!” in a house with a full refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, because the *one thing* they want right now isn’t available.
Even under more general conditions, where most people are pretty good at survival, there will always be some ... 5%? 10%? ... whose situation requires intervention. I have no doubt that private charity would continue to be a major feature. However, even with robust private resources, there would still be some kids-starving-in-the-street situations, if only because (as now) the parents refused (or were too drug-addled) to access the available help.
Then what? Government “has to” step in. Government “has to” have employees to save people from themselves. And it all starts all over again, just with a cost increment of +$20,000 from the previous level.
“By allowing the recipients to make their own choices with that safety net, you are forcing companies to compete over the private decisions over what to do with that money.”
We have that now since most public assistance recipients can use their ebt cards anywhere they want. I’ve never heard anyone argue that a welfare state is a monument to free markets, especially when a large majority of the population is totally dependent on govt. When govt controls your money it controls you.
The govt will also end up controlling business since business will be the major source of taxes. To support a majority of citizens at a lifestyle similar to what they have now (think middle class), the business tax will have to be at confiscatory rates. It will be tough for businesses to make a profit if people’s incomes are low and taxes are high so many will go bankrupt and will be taken over by govt. Govt control of business is not good for free markets.
Uh, job-——politician? I don’t get it. LOL! Either one actually.
Do you pay your Washington Post, Facebook and your household Employees equally, Mark? If not, why not?
No you aren't getting a Ford GT....(Your mom won't let me get one). 😀
Hey zuck the cuck, go ahead and send me a couple hundred thousand dollars every year, I promise to not send it back.
I am happy to accept all of the money that Mark Zuckerberg wants to give me.
Mark Z isn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve; he makes it a full-body tattoo.
Suckaturd may be the living incarnation of a liberal assnit with more money than brains, but the grim reality is that with mass robotization threat ening to permanently unemploy millions of min-wage and near-min-wage workers, job creation at a near standstill for a decade, ‘retirement’ and ‘vacation’ becoming punchlines in jokes, severly worsening income inequality and the middle class crumbling, a basic income is just not an idea that is going to become less popular.
We may need to face up the fact that we’re on the verge of societal changes that were just not imaginable a generation ago, unless we drastically rethink how our economy works.
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