The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income: To reduce government spending and intrusion.

The Atlantic ^ | 08/06/2014 | NOAH GORDON

[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.”

[ctdonath2]

I understand what it is.

_IF_ you’re going to have a welfare state, that’s the way to do it: take a percentage from each, give it to each as an average.

There are, however, two HUGE problems with it:
1. The “take” is not yours to decide. What you’re taking is NOT YOURS TO TAKE. What you’re taking is NOT YOURS TO GIVE.
2. The bureaucrats and takers will NEVER rescind their activities, and will forever demand involvement, decision-making, special cases, and fight to take more.

Remember, taxes started as simple & small.
Remember, welfare started as a “safety net” for the truly abject destitute.
And now both are voracious beasts, far beyond what any then-proponents would have tolerated.

Your “income guarantee” imposes the survival of one upon the efforts of another - at the choice of the recipient, not the giver. Of course Paul will agree to you robbing Peter to pay him. The income was not earned by you; the guarantee is not yours to make.

And your proposition has no inherent limit; the nature of its implementation leads to “from each according to his means, to each according to his needs” ... where have we heard THAT before?

2 Thessalonians 3:10 - For even when we were with you, we laid down this rule for you: “If a man does not choose to work, neither shall he eat.”
Exodus 20:15 - Thou shalt not steal.

[ctdonath2]

“An income guarantee is pro freedom and pro work.”

Uh-huh.

“We’re from the government, and we’re here to take 30% of your income and give it to people who don’t _want_ to work - even if they’re entirely capable of doing so.”
Now...what were you saying?