Posted on 08/06/2014 7:20:57 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, my colleague David Frum argued that conservative welfare reformers need to focus on simplification. As a young crop of conservative policymakers announce a range of proposals, there’s some movement in that direction. Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s plan would move most of America’s existing welfare funding into a single “flex-fund” to be disbursed to the states. Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, partly inspired by the “universal credit” reforms of Britain’s Conservative government, proposes allowing states to combine different forms of federal anti-poverty funding—food stamps, housing assistance, and more—into a single funding stream. In a recent speech about fighting poverty, Utah Senator Mike Lee told the Heritage Foundation, “There’s no reason the federal government should maintain 79 different means-tested programs.”
Meanwhile, the intellectual wing of reform conservatism likes these plans because they reduce government and offer citizens more control, at least in theory. Yuval Levin, one of the authors of the reform-conservatism manifesto Room to Grow, has praised Ryan’s plan, saying it would “give people more resources and authority and greater freedom to find new and more effective ways up from poverty.” Liberal wonks, on the other hand, have claimed it’s actually a paternalistic program at odds with the traditional Republican desire for less-intrusive government, since it relies on providers who make decisions for beneficiaries.
In any case, these ideas are circumscribed by traditional boundaries. Neither is a truly radical small-government idea alternative. But one idea that Frum highlighted is more radical: a guaranteed basic income, otherwise known as just giving people money.
The idea isn’t new. As Frum notes, Friederich Hayek endorsed it. In 1962, the libertarian economist Milton Friedman advocated a minimum guaranteed income via a “negative income tax.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Then guys weren’t perfect but, you’re crazy.
A certified minimum income?
Giving people money is not income...unless you are Moslem.
I remember Libertarian, Charles Murray recommending this in his book: “In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State”.
He essentially proposed eliminating all welfare transfer programs, including Social Security and Medicare, and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone 21 years and older.
I remember Libertarian, Charles Murray recommending this in his book: “In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State”.
He essentially proposed eliminating all welfare transfer programs, including Social Security and Medicare, and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone 21 years and older.
Typical claptrap from the historically illiterate lot at the Atlantic. They should rename that bloody pub "The Atlantis".
Typical Republicanism - “we can implement socialism better than the Democrats”.
Oh, yeah. There's a Conservative idea, right there.
Or the Batlantic.
There is no conservative case for a guaranteed basic income.
What do they think the WELFARE STATE?
If we didn’t already have this, then some people would be STARVING, instead of doing nothing, sitting at home, watching their plasmas all day.
The best thing for this country is to eliminate all Federal involvement in subsidized programs whatsoever. It just opens the country to tyranny.
"The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born." (emphasis added)
Worst idea ever. Too many people will be satisfied with a small income and all the time in the world.
I consider myself a hard working person, but 18 months of unemployment nearly ruined me. Sure, I didn’t have much money, but I woke up whenever I felt like it, enjoyed bike rides in the park and was free to do whatever I pleased. It was only the fear of losing my unemployment benefits that really pushed me to get a new job. Now, I’m back on a 50-60 hour week, but it took the fear of real poverty to turn around.
The same would be true of the many, many folks on the dole once they realized they would never starve.
Little doubt that A joker, if not THE Joker, is running the show over there, is there?
I like Hayek, but I do not worship Hayek. If Hayek thought a guaranteed income was a good thing, it does not necessarily mean that a guaranteed income is a good thing.
I agree and I think it is a really really stupid idea.
In 1969, President Nixon unveiled the Family Assistance Plan, which was essentially a guaranteed annual income. But it languished in Congress and was finally killed in 1972 when California governor Ronald Reagan, among others, came out strongly against it.
That magazine has gone fully flaming liberal. I used to enjoy reading an article in it here and there. Now, it seems like it is entirely a tedious navel-gazing exercise dedicated to extracting fractal patterns from belly-button lint.
Same difference.
Better than the welfare state we have now. If you’re going to hand out so much money to so many people for so many reasons, may as well just give everyone a flat amount and keep it simple. Not saying I like it, just that it would be an improvement.
Problem is, the system doesn’t want a simple solution. The complexity is there to employ as many as possible, magnifying the bureaucrat’s power. Give everyone a flat monthly check, and all kinds of exceptions for additional income will be invented, requiring the same voluminous bureaucracy we have now - just with a higher baseline cost.
And that’s the problem I have with flat tax (whatever flavor): just gets the government into even more of society, establishes a higher baseline, and will be “exceptioned” into something even more complex and costly than the IRS we have now.
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