4 ms·

People seem to forget just how much is currently spent on a lot of extremely... debatable programs. These are approximate numbers off the top of my head, but:

by qrendel 11y ago

People seem to forget just how much is currently spent on a lot of extremely... debatable programs. These are approximate numbers off the top of my head, but: US military spending = $1.5 trillion per year (~$700 billion for the DoD, the rest from other military and NatSec programs) US per capita healthcare spending = $8,600/person/year (edit: corrected by caseysoftware below, that includes private and public spending) Social Security = another ~24% of the federal budget Interest on the national debt = 7% of the US budget Again, rough numbers off the top of my head, but you could get a decent basic income going across the entire US just by switching to an affordable healthcare system and cutting the military budget to something on par with what the rest of the world spends. UBI would also replace and simplify a lot of the existing welfare and social security system, so that portion wouldn't even be additional spending compared to what's already happening. The obstacles seem more political and cultural than fiscal and economic. To a large extent it's basically wanting to replace the current corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex, healthcare, college bubble, etc. systems with something that would (arguably) benefit society far more.

caseysoftware 11y ago
Don't guess when the actual 2015 budget is a single search away: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... Your $1.5T number for military isn't backed up by facts as the entire discretionary spending for all agencies is only $1.1T US per capita healthcare spending - do you mean Medicare and Medicaid? I'm not sure how you came up with this number because $8.6k * 320M people = $2.75T which would be about 66% of the federal budget. Social Security itself is closer to 33% of the federal budget, not the 24% you cite.
- qrendel 11y ago
  Wikipedia gives 24% for both healthcare and social security for 2014.[1] Total military spending is more complicated but is estimated at 28-38% of the total budget (though no citation).[2] That gives somewhere between 0.98 and 1.33 trillion, so I guess I was off there, but it has been much higher at (estimated) 54% in recent years. Per capita healthcare spending is similarly estimated at $8,713 for 2014 or $9,146 for 2013 depending on which of those estimates you go with.[3] Presumably that includes total healthcare spending, public and private, but the issue is how much potential savings are there to pay for a UBI (by switching to a more effective healthcare system), so I think the total is relevant still, not just medicare + medicaid. Your 33% number for SS seems to come from the inclusion of spending on unemployment and labor. The military spending being larger than total discretionary probably comes from inclusion of veteran's benefits and other programs included in with mandatory. The exact numbers aside, I think the larger point still stands that the money is there - once you start looking at how much money is already being spent it's not hard to imagine getting a few trillion together for a UBI. Political feasibility is another matter, I agree it probably won't happen anytime soon for that reason, but saying it's economically infeasible just seems... wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Military_budget_and_total_US_federal_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- spangry 11y ago
  Discretionary spending doesn't even make up half of US Federal Government outlays. The CBO estimates that total budget outlays in 2014 were 3.5 trillion dollars (https://www.cbo.gov/about/products/budget_economic_data#2 https://www.cbo.gov/about/products/budget_economic_data#2). As for how much the US actually spends on Defense alone (as in the function, not just the discretionary portion of the budget that goes to the DoD), no one really knows for sure. The only estimate I can find is on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense#Budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...) and all the references lead to dead links. However, for whatever reason, the Oregon State Hospital hosts a copy of one of these documents (the 2010 DoD Agency Financial Report: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/otherfiles/Fiscal_Year_2010_DoD_Agencywide_Agency%20Financial%20Report.pdf http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/otherfiles/Fiscal_Year_...) Buried on page 58, in an appendix, are the actual numbers: 1.2 trillion dollars total DoD budgetary resources in 2010. The GAO have previously stated that DoD financials are so messed up that they are unauditable: As was the case in 2010, the main obstacles to a GAO opinion on the accrual- based consolidated financial statements were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable [http://www.gao.gov/press/financial_report_2011dec23.html http://www.gao.gov/press/financial_report_2011dec23.html] But don't worry, the DoD have a plan to have proper financial statements by 2017... [http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did_study#t=1 http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did...]
raddad 11y ago
Exactly. A disabled guy collects $908 a month which is 10896 annually, with housing and food stamps it comes to $18744 annually. The difference of $7848 annually is social services to allow survival and to keep all those social service employees employed. Figure 56.7 million disabled people in the USA(0), that's a lot of cake. $445 billion on top of the disability checks. I think this would cover the cost of the program plus save a bundle on social service employment. Average social worker earns $45,000 annually(1). 649,300 social workers (1) (2014) totals $29.2 billion. I don't believe we could eliminate all the social workers, but a substantial number of them. (0) http://1.usa.gov/1nQXOL7 http://1.usa.gov/1nQXOL7 (1) http://1.usa.gov/1nQY38Y http://1.usa.gov/1nQY38Y
- scottedwards 11y ago
  Are you saying that people on disability get a housing allowance in addition to the $908 a month and food stamps? That's news to me.
  - raddad 11y ago
    Rental Assistance https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assistance https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assi...
542458 11y ago
I get what you're saying, but this is exactly the sort of stuff that makes me think "wow, this is never going to happen". You're talking about in a very small span of time dismantling entire industries and a huge portion of both federal and state governments (shattering the value of billion-dollar companies, and temporarily putting millions of people out of their jobs) in order to implement an economic policy that has never been tested on a large scale in one of the world's most complicated economies. I really don't see how a plan like that could ever work in a democracy. You'd make too many people mad. Even if it were to everybody's long-term benefit the moment the layoffs started people would petition their state governments, who would drop out or refuse to comply with the plan, grinding the whole thing to a halt. The political will to do such a thing just isn't possible IMHO.

by qrendel 11y ago

caseysoftware 11y ago

Don't guess when the actual 2015 budget is a single search away: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... Your $1.5T number for military isn't backed up by facts as the entire discretionary spending for all agencies is only $1.1T US per capita healthcare spending - do you mean Medicare and Medicaid? I'm not sure how you came up with this number because $8.6k * 320M people = $2.75T which would be about 66% of the federal budget. Social Security itself is closer to 33% of the federal budget, not the 24% you cite.

qrendel 11y ago
Wikipedia gives 24% for both healthcare and social security for 2014.[1] Total military spending is more complicated but is estimated at 28-38% of the total budget (though no citation).[2] That gives somewhere between 0.98 and 1.33 trillion, so I guess I was off there, but it has been much higher at (estimated) 54% in recent years. Per capita healthcare spending is similarly estimated at $8,713 for 2014 or $9,146 for 2013 depending on which of those estimates you go with.[3] Presumably that includes total healthcare spending, public and private, but the issue is how much potential savings are there to pay for a UBI (by switching to a more effective healthcare system), so I think the total is relevant still, not just medicare + medicaid. Your 33% number for SS seems to come from the inclusion of spending on unemployment and labor. The military spending being larger than total discretionary probably comes from inclusion of veteran's benefits and other programs included in with mandatory. The exact numbers aside, I think the larger point still stands that the money is there - once you start looking at how much money is already being spent it's not hard to imagine getting a few trillion together for a UBI. Political feasibility is another matter, I agree it probably won't happen anytime soon for that reason, but saying it's economically infeasible just seems... wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Military_budget_and_total_US_federal_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
spangry 11y ago
Discretionary spending doesn't even make up half of US Federal Government outlays. The CBO estimates that total budget outlays in 2014 were 3.5 trillion dollars (https://www.cbo.gov/about/products/budget_economic_data#2 https://www.cbo.gov/about/products/budget_economic_data#2). As for how much the US actually spends on Defense alone (as in the function, not just the discretionary portion of the budget that goes to the DoD), no one really knows for sure. The only estimate I can find is on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense#Budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...) and all the references lead to dead links. However, for whatever reason, the Oregon State Hospital hosts a copy of one of these documents (the 2010 DoD Agency Financial Report: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/otherfiles/Fiscal_Year_2010_DoD_Agencywide_Agency%20Financial%20Report.pdf http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/otherfiles/Fiscal_Year_...) Buried on page 58, in an appendix, are the actual numbers: 1.2 trillion dollars total DoD budgetary resources in 2010. The GAO have previously stated that DoD financials are so messed up that they are unauditable: As was the case in 2010, the main obstacles to a GAO opinion on the accrual- based consolidated financial statements were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable [http://www.gao.gov/press/financial_report_2011dec23.html http://www.gao.gov/press/financial_report_2011dec23.html] But don't worry, the DoD have a plan to have proper financial statements by 2017... [http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did_study#t=1 http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did...]

raddad 11y ago

Exactly. A disabled guy collects $908 a month which is 10896 annually, with housing and food stamps it comes to $18744 annually. The difference of $7848 annually is social services to allow survival and to keep all those social service employees employed. Figure 56.7 million disabled people in the USA(0), that's a lot of cake. $445 billion on top of the disability checks. I think this would cover the cost of the program plus save a bundle on social service employment. Average social worker earns $45,000 annually(1). 649,300 social workers (1) (2014) totals $29.2 billion. I don't believe we could eliminate all the social workers, but a substantial number of them. (0) http://1.usa.gov/1nQXOL7 http://1.usa.gov/1nQXOL7 (1) http://1.usa.gov/1nQY38Y http://1.usa.gov/1nQY38Y

scottedwards 11y ago
Are you saying that people on disability get a housing allowance in addition to the $908 a month and food stamps? That's news to me.
- raddad 11y ago
  Rental Assistance https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assistance https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assi...

542458 11y ago

I get what you're saying, but this is exactly the sort of stuff that makes me think "wow, this is never going to happen". You're talking about in a very small span of time dismantling entire industries and a huge portion of both federal and state governments (shattering the value of billion-dollar companies, and temporarily putting millions of people out of their jobs) in order to implement an economic policy that has never been tested on a large scale in one of the world's most complicated economies. I really don't see how a plan like that could ever work in a democracy. You'd make too many people mad. Even if it were to everybody's long-term benefit the moment the layoffs started people would petition their state governments, who would drop out or refuse to comply with the plan, grinding the whole thing to a halt. The political will to do such a thing just isn't possible IMHO.