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Yes, but expanding Social Security to cover everyone (huge budget increase) is very different from shutting down Social Security and using the savings to pay pa

by evanpw 11y ago

Yes, but expanding Social Security to cover everyone (huge budget increase) is very different from shutting down Social Security and using the savings to pay part of a basic income (budget neutral). Even if the liberals and the libertarians use the same words, they mean different things by them.

kethinov 11y ago
Eliminating SS and replacing it with UBI is not budget neutral unless we're operating from the assumption that it's okay for UBI to be below subsistence levels. Nobody I know, libertarian or otherwise, sees that as viable. We all agree that UBI would need to replace Social Security in that it pays out just enough to live on.
- evanpw 11y ago
  You'd obviously have to cut a lot more than just SS in order to pay for a reasonably-sized UBI (that's why I said "pay part of"). But in any case, SS is probably a bad example, since it's already just a cash transfer (albeit a regressive one). If you paid for "Social Security for all" by cutting Medicare and the rest of the welfare state, I think most libertarians would go for that.
  - kethinov 11y ago
    Well we need to take into account a transitional program. We can't eliminate SS instantly, it has to be done over generational time as part of a transition program. The SS program would taper off over time as it's slowly replaced by UBI. I envision a system like this: Person A has just graduated from high school and has never worked right when the UBI program goes into effect. He never pays into SS and receives only UBI for life and will never be eligible to collect SS. Person B has worked under the existing system for n years and has paid into SS a significant amount. He stops paying into SS now and begins receiving UBI as well. When he reaches retirement age, he collects either SS or UBI, whichever is greater, based on the points he earned from paying payroll taxes. Person C is a current typical retiree. He continues to collect SS, as it pays better than UBI since he paid so much into it from his payroll taxes. This UBI system would pay out less benefits than someone with maxed out SS benefits gets today, but we wouldn't have the payroll tax anymore. Instead, the UBI program would be funded through income tax. This would cost significantly more than today's wealth redistribution programs even added together (setting aside Medicare/Medicaid which are kind of a separate issue), so it would certainly require higher taxes to support it.

by evanpw 11y ago

kethinov 11y ago

Eliminating SS and replacing it with UBI is not budget neutral unless we're operating from the assumption that it's okay for UBI to be below subsistence levels. Nobody I know, libertarian or otherwise, sees that as viable. We all agree that UBI would need to replace Social Security in that it pays out just enough to live on.

evanpw 11y ago
You'd obviously have to cut a lot more than just SS in order to pay for a reasonably-sized UBI (that's why I said "pay part of"). But in any case, SS is probably a bad example, since it's already just a cash transfer (albeit a regressive one). If you paid for "Social Security for all" by cutting Medicare and the rest of the welfare state, I think most libertarians would go for that.
- kethinov 11y ago
  Well we need to take into account a transitional program. We can't eliminate SS instantly, it has to be done over generational time as part of a transition program. The SS program would taper off over time as it's slowly replaced by UBI. I envision a system like this: Person A has just graduated from high school and has never worked right when the UBI program goes into effect. He never pays into SS and receives only UBI for life and will never be eligible to collect SS. Person B has worked under the existing system for n years and has paid into SS a significant amount. He stops paying into SS now and begins receiving UBI as well. When he reaches retirement age, he collects either SS or UBI, whichever is greater, based on the points he earned from paying payroll taxes. Person C is a current typical retiree. He continues to collect SS, as it pays better than UBI since he paid so much into it from his payroll taxes. This UBI system would pay out less benefits than someone with maxed out SS benefits gets today, but we wouldn't have the payroll tax anymore. Instead, the UBI program would be funded through income tax. This would cost significantly more than today's wealth redistribution programs even added together (setting aside Medicare/Medicaid which are kind of a separate issue), so it would certainly require higher taxes to support it.