I supported the idea when it was called a negative income tax - but only as a displacement of existing social safety net programs, not in addition to.
Not if it was “comfortable subsistence” and no more. No, you probably wouldn’t get to keep your savings/investments/retirement separate.
And Bone has it right - it cannot be just some kind of addition to our current social support structure. A subsistence-level income plus single-payer health care is all you get without earning what more you want or think you need. No subsidies at any other level - from childcare to special-needs to “job development” to industrial or farming supports - no more “welfare” of any kind.
Will some take the check and check out? Sure. No loss, and likely cheaper than the welter of “welfare” supports they’d otherwise get.
Will some use it as a platform to get trained, educated and skilled - many in ways that are not this-week’s-IT-niche? Certainly.
Food, shelter, internet connection. I know internet connection wouldn’t fit most people’s criteria for a basic income, but I’m assuming that should this idea ever get traction it’ll be far enough in the future that most people will have had internet access available their whole lives, thus view it as a necessity.
I’d quit because I dislike the stress that comes with work.
As an aside, a lot of times when I see someone advocating for a GBI on the internet they drop this Buckminster Fuller quote:
I can’t help but think if we had invoked this idea during Fuller’s lifetime there wouldn’t be much of an internet for that quote to be spreading around.
I would. What makes you think I wouldn’t?
OK, run the numbers for us. How much do people get, what will the tax rates be, and how will it be funded?
Be specific - if you want to raise taxes on the rich, who are the rich and how much will you raise them? How much will you save eliminating welfare, WIC, and the other means-tested transfers of the government? What about Social Security and Medicaid? Does this supercede state programs, or supplement them? What about differing cost of living rates?
If you want more than a bumper sticker response, you need more than a bumper sticker proposal.
Regards,
Shodan
Those two words you used have very different meanings depending on who you ask. What’s worse, the meanings tend to change over time. Humans have a funny way of adjusting to their circumstances. Do you really think people receiving fee money are willing to remain content with what they get? And what about the people providing the free money? It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which the person getting free stuff has a more comfortable subsistence that the person providing it. How do you think that will go over?
This is one of the things people say when they haven’t run the numbers. A basic income of 10,000 a year given to everyone would run 3 trillion a year, or 85% of current federal spending (which of course includes such things as government agencies and defense). And 10,000 is below the poverty line, so of course people would want more money. Saying that a basic income would reduce government spending is factually-incorrect wishful thinking.
Maybe you would. Most people driven enough to succeed in a skilled career are not the same people who would take a subsistence income and drop out of the game.
Not a clue, offhand. It’s not my primary objective and I see it very much as a phase-two or -three step, but one to aim for.
I do not mean, and do not believe in any practicability of “tax the shit out of some small segment to provide for everyone else.” It’s much more a rebalancing of what we already have, and spend, and “tax” - but to more sustainable and all-around dignified ends.
We already have a large portion of the population that is revenue-neutral to revenue-deficit. We could solve a huge number of problems by not pretending that 100% self-sustaining employment is achievable outside of an econ model, and throwing endless dollars down the rathole of trying to make that happen.
As part of an overall socioeconomic reform, quite well. But yes, if you’re stuck in the usual groove of these discussions where it’s moving the same worn pieces around the same overgrown chessboard - as in “tax the shit out of the rich to pay for everything, the bastards” - then the only future is wearing out those pieces yet further.
I disagree. Most people I’ve met don’t work harder than they have to.
But that’s a slippery index. “Work” at a job they dislike, in a career they chose for the wrong reasons? Skating becomes a way of life. (And really, all of that is further argument for a system that doesn’t drive people into detrimental work-to-“succeed” jobs.)
Most people, given a chance to do something productive with their time, will - just not necessarily “productive” on the earn-a-bigger-flatscreen scale.
Basic income aside, this suggests to me that you should find less stressful work.
I’m a software engineer who writes software in his spare time. Nothing would be more pleasing to me than to be able to spend all day building my own stuff for no other reason than the enjoyment I get out of building it.
Sadly I don’t know of too many positions where I can alternate between tasks based solely on what I’m in the mood to learn that day.
No.
So you chose a career you knew would require you to be a full-time wage worker over a career that would give you personal satisfaction. You’re hardly alone, but that’s one of the starting points for considering other choices early enough to make them a reality.
I chose the career that made me a full-time wage worker because I live in a system where full-time wage work is superior to any alternatives. With a GBI, I could just as easily acquire all the skills I have now but have absolutely no incentive to use those skills to benefit anyone else.
Is it, now.
You can think of no other… personal economic structure that would have brought you more of the satisfaction you more or less say you’re lacking?
Not one that will retain our current rate of innovation, no. I have no doubt I’d be happier if there were a GBI. I still think it’s a horrible idea.
Our current structure doesn’t seem to have done anything to incentivize you to innovate. You’ve been a full time wage earner because you are too risk averse to try anything more entrepreneurial. Imagine how much more innovative you might be if misjudging the market wouldn’t put you in the poorhouse.
Just because I build something doesn’t mean I need to share it with people. I like designing for myself, to fulfill my interests, not the market’s.
Plus I get time off from my current job when they decide to pursue a patent on my inventions. That’s a pretty nice incentive for a guy like me to share marketable ideas.
So full-time wage jobs promote innovation, while those who choose otherwise don’t innovate? I’m confused. That seems backwards.
Full-time wage jobs promote security and discretionary income over pretty much all else.
ETA:
So you chose to take a wage job that will let you sell your patentable ideas to your employer (for something a lot like the traditional “dollar in hand,” I assume, and not royalties), are unhappy doing so, and think that you couldn’t have done this entirely to your own tune and benefits as an individual?
This is all leaning way over into hijack territory, but I am interested in the way your story is unfolding.