Posted on 05/13/2013 5:07:01 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
In light of the recent Oregon Medicaid study, several people have discussed the idea of taking parts of the social insurance system and replacing them with cash benefits. This naturally brings up the debate about whether it should be a policy goal for the United States to adopt a universal basic income (UBI). These poverty-level targeted incomes are universal and unconditional, so everyone would get them regardless of their income, status or work participation. Wonkblog’s Dylan Matthews wrote an overview of universal basic incomes and some proposals for such a system last year.
Though establishing a basic income was once at the forefront of politics, it has since become more of a Utopian, abstract project. But sometimes it is helpful to step back from the day-to-day wonk work and think Utopian.
First, what are some advantages of providing a universal basic income? To those on the left, a UBI would create greater equality by ending poverty and providing a minimum living standard. It would also increase bargaining power for workers, who could demand better working conditions with a safety cushion. As Erik Olin Wright argues in Envisioning Real Utopias, such bargaining power “will generate an incentive structure for employers to seek technical and organizational innovations that eliminate unpleasant work,” which would “have not just a labor-saving bias, but a labor-humanizing bias.”
The fact that it is universal is crucial. This eliminates income traps that can cause severe work disincentives. ...... Eliminating poverty is an essential part of any egalitarian project, and a universal basic income could finish that in one move. ....
(Be sure to read the rest of the article!)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“The only thing they do is to consume, eat, get fat, have kids and drain the wealth of this country”
Thank goodness for planned parenthood so we can fix the ‘having kids’ problem /sarc.
They keep having kids, enough to max out the government bennies and weigh that against to cost of another mouth to feed, change diapers and look after. When that point is hit, they go with the abortions, at least until the others get above legal age and they lose their bennies...then it right back to preggerville for momma.
There’s this thing called inflation and purchasing power. Also, 30k a year? What would immediately happen is that prices would jump up and keep rising until 30k wasn’t enough.
The real answer is to eliminate welfare altogether. Then the cost of living will go down and there will be less money floating around. Money will get more and not less valuable meaning that poor people would be better and not worse off - especially the poor people who work.
So you support abortion then to cull their number?
Quick, somebody post Mr. Awww, Not This Sh*T Again!
Bad idea that’s been floating around since the days of FDR if not longer.
How could you take that as an assumption from what I said. I only mentioned their ‘practice’ of children, abortion and use to get government entitlements.
No where can any reasonable person infer from what I said is that I support abortion. In point of fact, I don’t support abortion in any form.
They mindlessly cull their own numbers without any help or support from me.
“No where can any reasonable person infer from what I said is that I support abortion.”
The fact that it’s the same argument Planned Parenthood makes, that poor people have too many children so we’d best make abortion accessible?
I cannot think of a single response that would be IRS approved.
LLS
Oh, go away. You take crap that PP spews out and call me out when I only relate what they do and you say I support it. I said nothing about making anything accessible. I don’t know what you’re smoking, drinking or popping this morning but you can bark that crap up another tree.
“The incentive to work would be the ability to live above the subsistence level.”
Except that “subsistence level” is pretty comfortable.
How about we bring American jobs home?
Huh?
Friedrich A. von Hayek
Someone makes the same argument they do, absolutely I’ll call em out on it.
How ‘bout we restore consequences for sloth, bastardy, and incompetence, instead?
One incentive to work now instead of take welfare is the infuriating ugly red tape to get it. I’d rather work than try to navigate that rat’s nest. But if a $30,000 check just showed up in my mailbox each year, I’d be sore tempted to find arrangements to make it work. See, it’s that poverty is, short of Haiti type situations, the consequences of bad behavior. Give the “poor” a “living wage” and they’ll blow it, give the “rich” the same and they’ll do just fine.
If everything other than that income was taxed at the same rate, and all other poverty programs were ended, and the money was given directly to the citizens with little to no overhead... this would not only be a good way to save money... it would also be a good way to encourage people to work by removing the fear of losing the benefits.
The hand-wringers who wonder about those unable to budget their money could be taken care of by distributing the money electronically on a daily basis. Have a federal program to help make mortguage/rent payments on a daily basis and everyone is now covered with the basic needs.
The problem with this... is actually that the left would never stand for a system that removed that much government power and encouraged capitalism.
The way to make that work is that every citizen gets that check... even the billionaires. That red tape is not just painful to the citizen, it has a huge amount of overhead for the government to process.
Did you have to go to school to learn how to be like you are? It is patently idiotic. I made no such argument nor approval thereof. Please go somewhere else and make your pathetic assertions - you obviously don’t have enough ammunition to make your point here.
Maybe we should sterilize everyone having children and making under 30k a year. Sounds like a great plan.
Love that guy.
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