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The Case Against a Universal Basic Income (vox.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
A prominent think tank founder argues that a Universal Basic Income is more likely to increase poverty than decrease it. Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, estimates just in the U.S. the cost would reach $3 trillion a year, "close to 100 percent of all tax revenue the federal government collects... A UBI that's financed primarily by tax increases would require the American people to accept a level of taxation that vastly exceeds anything in U.S. history..."
In a long interview with Vox, he warns that "If you have big, very expensive, and therefore highly politically unrealistic proposals, then I worry that people will look at them and say, 'Okay, we can do one or two pieces,' and too often the pieces that get selected out are pieces where a lot of the money goes to the middle or upper middle class... even UBI's staunchest supporters say we can get there in 15 to 20 years. I am totally not comfortable with any policy prescription that says we wait 15 to 20 years to deal with very deep poverty." He suggests instead focussing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable.
In a long interview with Vox, he warns that "If you have big, very expensive, and therefore highly politically unrealistic proposals, then I worry that people will look at them and say, 'Okay, we can do one or two pieces,' and too often the pieces that get selected out are pieces where a lot of the money goes to the middle or upper middle class... even UBI's staunchest supporters say we can get there in 15 to 20 years. I am totally not comfortable with any policy prescription that says we wait 15 to 20 years to deal with very deep poverty." He suggests instead focussing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable.
Is it "fair" that people who work hard and effectively, get their money stolen from them to make your hallucination into reality?
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My favorite would be 30 hour week, 5 six hour days, at a minimum of $600/week*, and there would be four shifts. And nobody should be required to work more than 10 years before being allowed to collect their social security (absent UBI). I'm not concerned about it being expensive because our prosperity warrants it and can easily afford it. There is plenty of money that is presently sequestered in the stock/commodities/derivatives markets to go around, so the people that say "work or starve" can go to hell.
But automation and UBI have to be inseparable, a matched set. Prices should go down as the robots fill in.
* the analogy goes like this, nobody should have to work more than an hour to buy a case of decent beer. So this can work in any country.
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When you consider the number of people who join the military as a form of UBI, we are probably close to it. And look at FairTax. They want UBI, just set unlivable low, and FairTax is a conservative idea with Conservative backers. Make the "prebate" in FairTax higher, and you have a conservative-created UBI program.
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