Posted on 07/20/2011 9:55:19 AM PDT by mainestategop
The above title should say it all. It is a currently unheard of social program but one that will become widely known just like Social security and Universal health care. The Universal Basic Income is essentially getting free money for life with no strings attached. ABSOLUTELY NONE! It is already beginning to take hold in New Zealand and is being contemplated (not surprisingly) by that Communist liberal utopia that Democrats want us to emulate, the European Union.
According to websites such as basic income.com and similar websites advocating the implementation of UBI, everyone would receive somewhere between six hundred to a thousand a month simply for doing no work. They even go as far as saying that no strings would be attached to it, that even drug addicts, the severely mentally ill and slackers would get it and could spend it any way they feel. It is designed to replace social security and unemployment insurance.
So let that sink in for a moment. The liberals are already gouging us to pay for welfare handouts to single moms with litters and crack addicts in housing projects who refuse to work. The government despite claiming to require work for some of them turns a blind eye and even helps them get out of work in some cases. We are also being gouged of our savings and the fruits of our labor to pay for free health care for people who are poor, most of whom either are poor by choice or because they made bad decisions.
Now, as if that were bad enough we are now going to pay to have 300 million Americans get free money for the rest of their lives and expect hard working Americans to subsidize it. WE ALREADY PAY FOR FOOD STAMPS WELFARE ETC AND ALL THIS GIANT GOVERNMENT AND NOW THEY EXPECT US TO PAY UP OUR NOSE EVEN MORE TO GIVE IT TO EVERYONE!
What's more there are no strings attached. (so they say) You wont have to get a job or quit being an alcoholic or drug addict. One Australian who wrote about this even argued that even pot heads and drinkers should get it regardless. Also people who have questionable difficulty managing money such as the severely mentally ill, people who spend their money foolishly should get it without strings attached.
What on earth are these liberals thinking? Do they think that if we give them free healtcare, free housing, free food, free this and free that and a handout of six hundred to a thousand dollars a month that they will want to hold a job? That they will be responsible? Do we seriously believe that if we give them all this money that they will start a business, produce, innovate or do anything but lay about?
Well that's the problem with liberals. They don't think through the consequences of the actions of socialism. We ARE seeing at this moment the failure of government regulations, how aspiring entrepreneurs are overwhelmed with all the hoops and barriers they must jump over just to start a small business and wind up going on welfare instead. Waiting 5 hours in line for food stamps and welfare and filling out triplicate forms is easier than waiting a year for government to approve your business and pay hundreds and thousands of dollars in fees afterwards.
The welfare state instead of a safety net is more of a hammock. One that I might add is flimsy and wont support and hold up very well. Why go to college study hard and work hard if you can live in public housing and get food stamps? After all, in the end the government will probably ban you from working, steal your money, close your business ETC and why work hard all your life if the government can take it away?
So now the liberal socialists will simplify it. A free handout. a few hundred a month, maybe a thousand and expect everything to be okay. Yeah, they think people are going to invest in a college education or small business and work.
But the truth of the matter is that it is not a free handout. Nothing is free and to say that there will be no strings attached is a mistake. For whenever you deal with the government, there is always, strings attached, not to mention chains. As I mentioned before... Liberals never think through the consequences of their actions. This is why their ideologies fail every time they are implemented.
So suppose we implement Universal Basic income here. Questions:Who is in charge of handing it out? Will the Social security administration handle that task the way they handle SSI? Who decides how much we get? What if the government takes it away from us? What if government requires something in return later on? Will the amount go up and down? Suppose I take a job at McDonald's? Will my UBI be deducted? If so whats the point of working? What happens if it is misused? Will there be a representative payee program like with SSI and disability? What if the payee abuses it? What if government does nothing about it? What if drug addicts and mentally ill still get it while healthy people are given abusive payees?
Another even better question? Can we afford to pay every American a UBI? No doubt taxes will have to be raised and spending on the military will have to be cut off. I also expect liberals will use eminent domain, asset forfeiture, SSI scamming and other underhanded socialist tricks to seize money from those who toil their whole lives to pay for it.
But if we simply use reason and logic and think through and remember our history especially the past 100 years of history, we can come up with the answers very easily. In fact I'm going to give a few of them right now...
First of all, we cannot afford it. Even if we tax the wealthiest Americans 80% or even 90% of their incomes we couldn't afford it. To top it off, since it will take away the incentive to work, invest and innovate, you wont see anymore people working and paying taxes. To top it off, liberals will begin working their way painfully from top to bottom like they do in states like Maine and New Jersey. In Maine for instance, liberals have scared off all their businesses with high taxes and regulations and it is the poorest state in the Northeast and 3rd poorest in the country. It is also the worst state for jobs.
To top it all off it has the most regressive tax system in America. One of the highest sales and income tax burdens especially on the middle class and working poor, pay roll taxes ETC. Democrats in that state argued "oh! We all have to sacrifice for the greater good!" The greater good of course meaning totalitarian statism and socialist domination.
The same will happen nation wide. I expect liberals to tax to death even the middle class and raise sales taxes to the same level as the Europeans, meaning sales taxes of 25% or 30% to the dollar especially on necessities. This will further destroy the incentive to work and innovate, it will destroy the incentive to create jobs for businesses that still exist barely. Its like I told one liberal on YouTube. If the government can soak the rich, they can soak the homeless even more. They do in Maine.
To answer the other questions, yes there will be strings attached. If the government has that much power to give you free money and health care for life it can take it away from you for any reason it can fathom such as being too old, too sick, too weak or being disabled and unable to work. So that pretty much means you don't contribute. You become what liberals in the early 20th century used to term, useless eaters. The state will either kill you or leave you to starve to death.
Also the UBI can be used to coerce loyalty. Are you a tea party member? Do you vote for candidates or measures that oppose socialism and the glorious liberal communist state? No more money for you! Not only that we will ban you from working! It can happen easily friends. As for the Australian's viewpoint that even the very wild and crazy and addicts can have it with no strings attached, well its doubtful.
Eventually if such a program is implemented, there will be incidents of severely impaired individuals getting the money but not using it for needs instead say donating it to the flat earth society or buying scrap metal to build a magic toaster that can travel in time, not to mention incidents of people overdosing or causing criminal mischief. With that the representative payee program will no doubt be used for that purpose.
The Representative Payee program in truth is a liberal conspiracy to steal your benefits and waste them. Payees are allowed to charge up to 40$ out of your benefits if you have one.(Devastating if you only get 400$ a month.)Often times, people who are perfectly capable of managing money are given payees and people who aren't are left alone. The overwhelming majority of those who have them are abused and wind up worse off then ever.
Those of you who have read my blog over the years are familiar with stories of liberals confiscating entire estates and destroying jobs to force innocent people into poverty and misery. Throughout America thousands of Americans who once were employed and independent had our liberal government come in, take away their money, job, home and belongings, put guardians and payees in charge and dump them on the streets. I intend to go into more detail about the representative payee program and how it is misused and abused and how it is clumsy and further proof of socialism's failure later on.
I’m all for it. Send me my checks.
Going Galt would be so easy!
What on earth are these liberals thinking?
The other 10% know better, but see it as yet another ploy to accumulate power by making unsustainable promises to the great, unwashed masses.
So basically government will bribe us with our own money.
How do we not have this already??? Any lazy bum who doesn’t want to work can get food stamps. Its incredibly easy to make up a disability to get SSI. And prosecutions of doctors for fake disabilities are far too few. And if you pump out enough kids you can get enough income to live comfortably without even having to lie. The bottom line is that if you are lazy, you already can get a basic minimum income from the taxpayer in the good old USA.
If you have a child it is already here in the form of the EITC; getting money “back” that you never paid in the first place.
Didn’t Heinlein first propose this idea back in the ‘30’s with his work ‘For Us, the Living’?
Regardless, I thought it was an unworkable idea when I first read it... and I still do.
Didn’t Heinlein first propose this idea back in the ‘30’s with his work ‘For Us, the Living’?
Regardless, I thought it was an unworkable idea when I first read it... and I still do.
A couple of thins come to my mind. 1. There is no free lunch. 2. Who ever pays the piper, calls the tune.
This ain’t a good thing.
Correct! The 'Earned Income Tax Credit' is a minimum income program paid for by U.S. workers(tax payers). It's already here.
And, we are not bribing ourselves with our own money. The politicians are bribing non-workers(tax payers) with workers(tax payers) money. There's a big difference. If bandits were robbing banks and using the money to bribe law enforcement, it'd be a sensational crime. Politicians can rob workers(tax payers) and bribe voters with the money and it's just politics.
No, they are going to bribe me with your money.
'Till it's all gone. Shouldn't take more than 20 years.
I'm good with having fun 'till I'm 80.
“Whoever pays the piper calls the tune” - here in the good old USofA, the judges call the tune.
Look at it this way: There are hardworking folks who really want to work and forcing those who don't to take a job simply deprives the willing worker of his due. Besides the unwilling worker's productivity will never be equal to the person with a real work ethic so it might actually be cheaper to pay the slackers to stay home, less traffic and so forth, you see.
As for those that are poor because they made bad decisions I can understand that quite well. One day years ago I decided I wouldn’t be wealthy and sure enough, that's one of my easiest goals to realize and I'm sure it is for many others.
Bad decision? I don't know, it seems so many have helped me follow through on that decision by drawing off my unspent funds that surely they must have seen the right of it.
And contrary to the cartoon, if I received this universal benefit check (or two or three) it would be spent on my needs only. I would only spend your hard earned money on someone who really deserves it....me.
I'll not take any more of your time, I know you'll need to work to support both of us soon.
Hate to ask... Could you give me a cash advance on my next check?
That’s step 1. Step 2 - only one benefit per family. Two siblings split one benefit. 4 each get 1/4.
“So basically government will bribe us with our own money.”
____________________
Actually borrowed Chinese money.
Time to defund the US Government
Daughter used to date a guy whose mom said that we had enough land in the US to build houses for everyone to have a free house and enough farm land to provide free food for everyone. Daughter asked her if the government was going to provide a free place to live and free food, why would anybody work? Boyfriend’s mom didn’t get that concept. Fortunately, daughter finally kicked said boyfriend to the curb.
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