4 ms·

As Milton Friedman remarked, full open borders are not compatible with a welfare state (which the "job guarantee" is one example of). To be sure, you can open

As Milton Friedman remarked, full open borders are not compatible with a welfare state (which the "job guarantee" is one example of). To be sure, you can open up a lot compared to the status quo (especially wrt. highly-skilled immigration, which gets pointlessly restricted in most developed countries); but some degree of proper control is likely necessary.

tehjoker 7y ago
Fwiw, a job guarantee is supposed to be doing useful work. If more people come and we can sustain them environmentally, they'll carry their own weight and more.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  Immigrants are known to sacrifice more for future generations i.e. two families in a small house to make ends meet. I think open borders is a good idea it's humane. I think adding a federal vat or sales tax would help get taxes from those who do come. I think full citizenship should definitely have a build up (state benefits, voting rights, etc), but anyone should be allowed to come/go as they please. A tax on goods purchased would ensure that all who are here would pay. I think we could even move from income taxes to sales taxes and possibly property taxes (all purchases including business purchases like employee salaries, etc would have the same tax, all investments would have the tax on the initial investment, and the institute receiving the investment would pay a tax on the interest since they are paying that to the recipient before the recipient receives it). Homes, boats, cars, airplanes, all taxed at purchase. Tax rate would be decidable by congress based on current needs. This would go hand in hand though with guaranteed basic income and ending welfare. Tax rate would burden the lower 1/3rd so GBI would need to be a necessity to offset that and would be adjustable based on housing estimates -- the goal should be to get everyone into a home, and if people are still homeless it's possibly not enough. Though, a home address should also be required within 3 months of receiving GBI to continue receiving it. Welfare should turn into social workers who are helping the homeless adjust to being non-homeless and ensuring they meet minimal guidelines to receive GBI which is - be living in a home, and not just paying someone to say you live there. I'm for single-payer but not sure how we'd pay for immigrant coverage, perhaps they'd need to use coverage from their home country of citizenship or buy a plan to be covered? It might be a moot issue if the costs of hospital and drugs go down enough and we end up paying less to cover anyone in the country, but I also think we need to work w/ the world in general to adopt open borders everywhere so the U.S. is not the only place people can/will go. TLDR; Open borders yes, income tax replaced by VAT/Sales, Single Payer and Guaranteed Basic income are a must for citizens only for VAT to work. Be humane but don't encourage 'leeching', other than having access immigrants would not receive benefits for being here until they're citizens and would pay higher VAT than citizens and greencard holders. I think a job guarantee is unrealistic jobs come and go and there's an entire industry of self-employeed contractors now via UBER / DoorDash / etc that would provide opportunities for newbies to work and support their families.
  - tehjoker 7y ago
    Consumption based taxes are regressive and spare the wealthy who spend more on financial products, real estate, and businesses than on consumer goods. If someone is so desperate for medical care that they'll leave their own country to come here, let's just give it to them. We're willing to "share democracy" through trillions in military spending, but this would be purely good thing. There's plenty of money to go around here.

tehjoker 7y ago

Fwiw, a job guarantee is supposed to be doing useful work. If more people come and we can sustain them environmentally, they'll carry their own weight and more.

gremlinsinc 7y ago
Immigrants are known to sacrifice more for future generations i.e. two families in a small house to make ends meet. I think open borders is a good idea it's humane. I think adding a federal vat or sales tax would help get taxes from those who do come. I think full citizenship should definitely have a build up (state benefits, voting rights, etc), but anyone should be allowed to come/go as they please. A tax on goods purchased would ensure that all who are here would pay. I think we could even move from income taxes to sales taxes and possibly property taxes (all purchases including business purchases like employee salaries, etc would have the same tax, all investments would have the tax on the initial investment, and the institute receiving the investment would pay a tax on the interest since they are paying that to the recipient before the recipient receives it). Homes, boats, cars, airplanes, all taxed at purchase. Tax rate would be decidable by congress based on current needs. This would go hand in hand though with guaranteed basic income and ending welfare. Tax rate would burden the lower 1/3rd so GBI would need to be a necessity to offset that and would be adjustable based on housing estimates -- the goal should be to get everyone into a home, and if people are still homeless it's possibly not enough. Though, a home address should also be required within 3 months of receiving GBI to continue receiving it. Welfare should turn into social workers who are helping the homeless adjust to being non-homeless and ensuring they meet minimal guidelines to receive GBI which is - be living in a home, and not just paying someone to say you live there. I'm for single-payer but not sure how we'd pay for immigrant coverage, perhaps they'd need to use coverage from their home country of citizenship or buy a plan to be covered? It might be a moot issue if the costs of hospital and drugs go down enough and we end up paying less to cover anyone in the country, but I also think we need to work w/ the world in general to adopt open borders everywhere so the U.S. is not the only place people can/will go. TLDR; Open borders yes, income tax replaced by VAT/Sales, Single Payer and Guaranteed Basic income are a must for citizens only for VAT to work. Be humane but don't encourage 'leeching', other than having access immigrants would not receive benefits for being here until they're citizens and would pay higher VAT than citizens and greencard holders. I think a job guarantee is unrealistic jobs come and go and there's an entire industry of self-employeed contractors now via UBER / DoorDash / etc that would provide opportunities for newbies to work and support their families.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Consumption based taxes are regressive and spare the wealthy who spend more on financial products, real estate, and businesses than on consumer goods. If someone is so desperate for medical care that they'll leave their own country to come here, let's just give it to them. We're willing to "share democracy" through trillions in military spending, but this would be purely good thing. There's plenty of money to go around here.