alcoholbob
Diamond Member
- May 24, 2005
- 6,271
- 323
- 126
IIRC, Milton Friedman floated an idea like this back during the Nixon days.
I love this concept, frankly.
* It also eliminates the need for a minimum wage. This eliminates what is effectively an hiring tax for employers on the low end.
* It gives employees better leverage. In the past, they couldn't just walk away from a bad job or unfavorable employment terms if they absolutely needed that income. With a guaranteed minimum income, it makes it easier for an employer to quit and thus adds a bit more balance and leverage to the employer-employee balance of power. (In the past, if you wanted to give employees leverage, you either legislated it, or let them form unions)
The libertarian part of me likes that this eliminates bureaucracy and restores better balance to the employment market. The liberal part of me likes that this does so while preserving the ideals that nobody should be left to hang out and dry.
As for the objections against, "well, people will just take this and lazily mooch off of it", there are fairly easy fixes, I'd imagine. First, you'd want to calibrate the level of the guarantee to make sure that people don't starve or become homeless, but also make sure that it's low enough that they'd want more than just the basic necessities. And there can be direct safeguards, too, such as cutting off the benefits if the person makes no taxable income in X number of years (assuming they're not past a certain age).
Milton's idea is great in theory but doomed to fail in execution. Its great because is a progressive tax, unlike social security, which is a regressive tax. However, giving people the freedom to spend money as they please means some will blow all their dough on day 1. And it doesn't take into account those in special circumstances. Just like communism, it will fail because it is too broad and because of human nature.
As much as I fucking hate social security, no reasonable person can deny the following:
1) Americans suck at saving and love spending. Social security forces people to save a portion of their income. We can't go back to the days where old people are just dying in the streets.
2) Disabled is a group no one joins by choice. I understand that there are a number of people who abuse the system. However, as a society we have an obligation to provide for those who truly cannot provide for themselves.
Facts can be stubborn things.
Okay, so you want to punish children for the mistakes of their parents. That sounds like a great idea.
Probably can't have true welfare reform without tackling white privilege. That's likely the biggest form of welfare humanity has ever experienced. We might have to restructure all of society and government to get rid of it.
Probably can't have true welfare reform without tackling white privilege. That's likely the biggest form of welfare humanity has ever experienced. We might have to restructure all of society and government to get rid of it.
lmfao
Yeah, I blame Obamacare too!
more info for anyone not in outer space: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/m...ople-for-being-alive.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Does a middle of the road solution make any sense?
Setup a lump-sum account, but make it pay out every few days instead of monthly. If you blow through your money and have to wait for the next period you won't starve, but you'll probably actually spend it on food next pay interval. I think this will more effectively force people to learn how to spend it at least minimally competently. I can see why these sorts of intervals weren't used when there were real overheads in doing so but these days it should be minimal since the payout is electronic and automatic.
Don't allow withdrawing the money to cash. Automatically monitor the types of spending the people make (my credit card now even does this) and raise red flags under some bad patterns. Disallow certain vendors from having access to the accounts - or possibly require vendors to sign up for it from the start. Even if this is initially limited to more core necessity items it can still be a lot broader than any given program today.
What you're proposing is the current system of specific targeted welfare, but drawn from the same system/account. That's entirely different than mincome.
And the idea is that this isn't welfare for the downtrodden, everyone gets this. What's to stop someone from spending their income at the casino instead of paying the mortgage?
This idea cannot work without allowing people to fail, but bleeding hearts will never allow that.
What I was proposing wasn't necessarily supposed to be welfare for the downtrodden either, this could be given to everyone. Having a system that allows the account to be restricted in some way as necessary doesn't stand in the way of that. The actual appropriate set of restrictions and policies would have to be figured out and probably modified over time.
I do think just following the one implementation detail of giving out the money in small regular payouts would curb a lot of the egregiously bad spending.