They will receive their guaranteed income, our taxes will rise to cover it, they will make the same bad choices in how to spend that money and they will remain poor.
And we will continue to fund yet another program THAT DOES NOT WORK.
Newsweek’s on-line “Comments” section is populated by idiots.
The only result of a basic income check is that the price of Colt 45 Malt Liquor will go up.
Thomas Paine suggested a similar scheme two hundred years ago.
No reasonable amount of income will support a lifestyle that is centered around booze, drugs and sex.
Basic Income Checkwould cover would rise in price, ever spiraling upwards.
Hello Hyperinflation.
“Poverty” is defined as a percentage of income below the average. Therefore, it is impossible to eliminate “poverty,” because there will always be 20% that are at the bottom of income distribution.
No matter what you do, you will still have the same number of people competing for the same amount of scarce goods and services. Write everyone a check and it will just cost that much more money. The only way to put a dent in poverty is through innovation... in other words the ability to produce more goods and services cheaper so that more of the pool competing for them can receive them.
I support a basic income program:
“Matt Zwolinski, founder of Bleeding Heart Libertarians, thinks basic income would be no worse than the current welfare state, which often stops providing benefits when recipients become employed. “As a result,” he says, “poor families often find that working more (or having a second adult work) simply doesn’t pay.” Zwolinski believes libertarians and small-government conservatives should be fighting to replace welfare with a basic income guarantee, which would shrink the government and promote personal independence—two tenants of their political beliefs.”
Our current welfare system pays people not to work. A basic income program is the opposite: it creates a true safety net through which people can never fall and if people work and earn more than their basic income, no problem. Pro work, pro family and from a conservative point of view it would cost way less than all of our welfare programs put together today do. And its the most efficient way to tackle poverty.
I have randomly set my basic income as $350,000 a year. I want my check.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/betsy-isaacson/98/295/645
This is what she's aspiring to...
Opportunities Betsy is looking for:
Joining a nonprofit board
Skills-based volunteering (pro bono consulting)
With a resume like hers how can we possibly not follow her advice?
Proposals like this never factor in the hundreds of thousands of welfare workers who’d be put out of work...
We can’t end poverty. We might be able to reduce it with incentives to work, but we will never end it.
For those on this forum, over the past ten years or so, that have argued the benefits of the so-called Fair-tax, then what you are arguing for is what the international socialists call a BIG (Basic Income Guaranty) which is a basic income check for everybody.
The idea of the Fair-tax (I call it the Fart Tax as it taxes those who have retired living on income from investments that already have been taxed where the IRA’s were to be withdrawn with no taxes) is that it is a consumption tax, at quite a high rate, in order to fund the government. Everyone would get a basic “prebate” every month to offset basic needs. Since that would be figured in there would be no tax exemptions for essential items such as food and clothing. The understanding is “rich” people and the “Boomers” stole from the people for so long so now we will take them to the cleaners.
Many have argued it as a conservative idea but in reality it is a socialist plan to establish a BIG.
The other thing, does anybody wish to argue that the laws will not eradicate all income taxing schemes? What does one do with generation skipping trusts? What about international consumption? Will the USA require every nation in the world to remit a tax on spending by US citizens?
One other thing; how many people here wish the government know exactly where you live so to be able to send you a monthly check (most likely it would be EBT but ten years ago it was a check)? And, how much corruption will there be regarding family size, dependents, etc?
so every baby is worth 10 k per year.
this idea keeps coming back, and it won’t work
This type of spending by the government that guarantees a minimum income is consumption expenditure, which is destructive to capital accumulation, which has a negative effect on economic progress, which is necessary for increasing prosperity for the country as a whole. The institutions of capitalism and productive expenditure is what leads to increased capital accumulation and technological progress, which leads to economic progress and prosperity.
Anyone who took Econ 101 should be able to spot two huge flaws in any scheme like this:
#1 - Poverty is defined as below a certain percentage of the average income in a particular area. If you give everyone a “minimum income”, it raises the “average income”, and thus raises the poverty line. So you will be trying to hit a moving target.
#2 - Giving everyone a “minimum income” would increase the amount of money being spent in the economy, which would increase the cost of goods for everyone. Not only might you fail to lift the poor out of poverty, but you could very well end up sending more people into poverty by destroying the purchasing power of their money.
“there is no policy, ideology or political party that is on the books as pro-starvation, pro-homelessness, pro-death or anti-dignity”
Guess I don’t fit anywhere!!!
Make your own way in this world or quit taking up space on this planet, lie down in the street and croak!