I agree......
Juggling the numbers for GA (your state may differ, but point is made) and applying them nationally for a SWAG...
If we’re going to go with a “guaranteed basic income” as an alternative to welfare (dump the bureaucracy and just give everyone the same livable amount*):
- the goal is to ensure nobody lives below the “poverty line”
- in lieu of trying to enumerate who qualifies for what under what conditions as interpreted & executed by a bureaucracy, likely leaving cracks which the intended recipients fall thru
- just route welfare revenue equally to everyone so nobody is missed
- everyone gets a check for $11,770, do with it as you will (your responsibility as you see fit, lest accusations of “telling others what to do with their money”* and again screwing up things for those actually in need)
- that’s a total national expenditure of $3.75T
- total government revenue for all jurisdictions is $5.8T; given that about $1.16T is debt service (miss that and the house of cards collapses), leaving $4.64T, in turn leaving post-GBI funds for government to run on at just $0.9T.
- “Ain’t happenin’” comes to mind.
(* - as a libertarian, I find this notion appalling (”wealth redistribution” is distasteful for reasons enumerated at length elsewhere). For sake of discussion, and vs the reality of an enormous & broken welfare system and the unlikelihood of actually eliminating it outright, this amounts to a grudgingly acceptable alternative.)