[afraidfortherepublic]

Rutger Bregman is a reporter with the Dutch-language online outlet De Correspondent, where a longer version of this piece can be found. He is on Twitter: @rcbregman.

[ScottinVA]

The liquor, tattoo, porn and (in some states) pot industries would see an immediate boost.

A great idea! Oh, wait...

[FlingWingFlyer]

“Street VETERANS”. LOL! I like “rough sleepers” better.

[katana]

The idea from the early seventies of a negative income "tax" (advocated by Milton Friedman) to replace the entire welfare system of thousands of rules and tens of thousands of highly paid civil service drones comes to mind. File a return and either send in a check or get one back. Blow it all? Tough s***!

Just putting all those unionized civil "servants" out on the street to look for productive work would be a joy.

[catnipman]

“Free money might be the best way to end povertyFree money might be the best way to end poverty”

That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, too: give a trillion dollar coin to each and every person in the U.S! The coins cold be minted from a base metal so it would cost only a fraction of a cent to make each one. Everybody in the U.S. would become instant trillionaires and could buy anything they could ever possibly want, and best of all, no one would ever have to work again. And while the government is at it, it could mint a few extra trillion dollar coins to fund the government and eliminate all taxes at the same time! It’s really one of those win-win situations.

[Gay State Conservative]

The men were free to decide what to spend it on.

[Jack Hammer]

“The 13 would get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers.”

So... the money isn’t free.

Why is it that every time the government hands out cash, it’s considered “free” when, in reality, it’s confiscated from those who work for it?