And along with all this UBI gatekeeping will we also implement measures to stop rich people from buying stupid shit like millions for a painting (barely disguised money laundering, THAT is) or solid gold toilet seats for the yachts they’re parking in their yachts? Or does this paternalistic attitude only apply to poor people? Kardashians can waste millions on plastic surgery to make their butts enormous but dude down the street on UBI can’t buy a six pack? Fuck that.
You don’t have to go there - you can look at Medicare here. With the advantage that we Medicare recipients don’t even have to take time off from work to go to the doctor.
What I found when I searched for over consumption of Medicare is this. Which is not about patients demanding too much care, but low value treatments and tests. I know the issues with doing away with this stuff, but in principle I think most who support single payer “free” plans are fine with working on this. ACA had some support for evidence based medicine.
Now many people do have some co-pays (I don’t) but I doubt that keeps many people away. Sitting in a doctor’s office isn’t that much fun. Mostly doctors don’t have to and shouldn’t prescribe expensive and unnecessary treatment, and removing the incentive for them to do so (which exists in our non-Medicare plans) would help reduce the over-consumption you are worried about.
When computing the cost of a social safety net, you have to look at all the factors, and not just the immediate costs. We don’t have free college, unlike much of Europe, and even public colleges are getting more expensive. That saves government money in the short run, but what about the issue of people not starting new businesses, getting married, or buying houses because they are weighed down with college debt? Look at the cost of homelessness in lots of places. Look at the cost of lost productivity because our roads suck.
We need to look at the big picture.
So are you proposing that the safety nets needs to be such that whatever the richest person can have society needs to provide to the poorest or that we need to allow UBI recipients to do whatever they want with their income since we don’t regulate conspicuous consumption. I agree with the later to the point that I would be ok letting someone who spent their rent money on drugs die in the street.
In America, about 25% of GDP is paid in taxes.
Granted, some of that is deficit spending. If we had 0 deficit spending (before hte Trump tax cuts) I’m guessing it’d be closer to 29% to balance the budget.
Nations are able to handle 35-45% of GDP as taxes. Denmark, Germany, France, etc.
So I’d be in favor of taxes being closer to 35% of GDP. Assuming you balance the budget, that is an additional 1.2 trillion or so to work with.
Forms of advances in the social safety net I’d support.
Jobs program for people who want (but can’t find) a job to work on infrastructure programs.
Universal health care.
Free public college.
Increases in social security payments for people whose AIME is less than $5000 a month.
UBI when automation causes mass unemployment.
On top of that, I don’t know if these count as social safety nets but
More spending on renewable energy (will create jobs)
more spending on R&D (also create jobs)
More spending on public transit
There are, in fact, a significant number of people that do NOT “contribute to the payment”.
SOME of the citizens are paying for it.
I wouldn’t use the word “earned” to describe either of those things either (or “right” for that matter).
I’m fine with the federal government administering our protection from foreign invasion. There’s clear authorization for that in the Constitution:
Most of the things you list here aren’t generally administered by the federal government today. As for where I’d cut if it were solely up to me, I haven’t put together a detailed plan because there’s absolutely no chance of it happening. How 'bout this if you’re itching for a proposal though: cut the budget of every non-defense discretionary program in half, and freeze it at that level until we have a budget surplus.
As long as the Kardashians don’t come back to mommy fed.gov, hat in hand, asking for more money for groceries or rent, IDGAF how big their butts are or how many gold toilet seats they own. Same goes for the “dude down the street”.
Good point. So what do we do with them? Kill them? Let them starve?
OK. So how do we get doctors to stop ordering the tests that the gov’t pays for. And keep patients from demanding them?
If you are really serious, why not cut defense spending. You might as well, because according to your own cite:
"Health care and health research constitute 22 percent ($148 billion) of NDD spending in 2019. These programs support health research and the provision of health care services but do not include Medicare and Medicaid, which are mandatory programs.
Roughly half of NDD health spending provides hospital and medical care for veterans."
That means about 11% of what you want to cut in half goes to veterans medical care. If you are not going to pay for that, you might as well cut the defense budget so there are fewer of those money sucking wounded vets draining the budget.
Rather than giving them $1,000 in cold, hard cash, we provide them things like food stamps, and heating fuel assistance, and give them Section 8 housing, etc. In other words, it looks a lot more like the safety net we have today (less cash, more goods and services) than Yang’s envisioned UBI.
Typical, conflating “not paying federal income tax” with “paying no tax at all.”
Not at all. I understand the distinction, but Yang’s UBI isn’t going to be paid for with state or local taxes.
If these citizens pay their state’s taxes, the state won’t require as many transfer payments from the feds (and may even be able to transfer TO the feds) so what difference does it make?
Sorry if I am late, but the social safety net should allow all citizens to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It should be large enough that nobody should have to starve or go homeless or go uneducated or go without at least basic medical care.
I am all for the illuminating forces of competitive capitalism. But this should be for reserved things like discovering who can invest the better mousetrap or the bigger bullshit social media site. We learn from those competitions, we get innovations, consumers benefit.
Society doesn’t learn anything from figuring out who does the greatest job of feeding or housing their families. Nobody learns any new approach to that, nobody really gets actionable information from knowing that filthy rich people get more food.
If you really want a vibrant market of ideas, stop making people waste their brainpower figuring out where their next meal or next insulin dose is coming from. Solve those problems and let them work on more valuable things.
It’s ironic that you’re ignoring FICA payroll taxes, since they fund social security and Medicare, two features of today’s social safety net.
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Respectfully, I think discussions of costs are deviating from the more salient point - what do we provide people in this country? Only after we answer that question can we discuss how much it will cost and how to pay for it. I personally think the proposals to increase access to education and healthcare are natural and wise expansions of our current system.
I question whether a UBI would effectively serve as a social safety net. Are it’s supporters really suggesting that it would supplant all other social services, or is it just a proposed addition to things like unemployment insurance, food stamps, section 8 housing, free school lunch, et al?
I can’t speak for Yang but in my ideal implementation, yes. We minimize the government’s intervention in people’s life, no telling them to buy brocolli instead of beer or live in a particular section of town, or don’t donate it to your church rather we let people decide what makes their lives better while giving them enough money to meet their basic needs. The nice thing about the monthly check is you always have the opportunity to do something different next month. Though I am intrigued by the daily payments though the administration costs may out weight the benefits.
Each person picks a primary care physician and the government pays that primary care physician a fixed annual sum; the government pays a hospital a fixed sum for each heart attack… There are several alternatives to the current fee for service method.
Don’t you understand that with food stamps these type people don’t spend those food stamps on food; they sell them at a discount for cash so they can go and buy booze or drugs or whatever?
Yes, I understand that happens. Our current social safety net is too large.