8 ms·

Can they not do basic math? There are around 30 mil adults in California. Even if provision 18992.1 (b) is 5 mil people, that's still 25 mil people. That's 2

• mech1234 7y ago
  This bill will not pass. Its introduction is primarily a signalling exercise and a populist rallying cry.
  • option 7y ago
    we should vote out those who introduced it. In CA it is very easy to vote by mail. Please do
    • option 7y ago
      Checked my (already filled in mail-in ballot). No, Evan Low (who introduced this) aren’t getting my vote now. (and I have to request a new ballot now :( )
    • purplezooey 7y ago
      While you're at it, also vote out your state senator that voted against SB 50.
      • option 7y ago
        I did
  • phreeza 7y ago
    This exact thing was said about Brexit, too.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• infecto 7y ago
  Boy, I already pay some of the highest taxes in the country and now I get to pay more. For what? They cannot manage anything else properly in this state.
  • searine 7y ago
    >For what? Schools. Roads. Sewers. Water. Clean air. Power. Safety. Just to name a few. Nothing important really.
    • option 7y ago
      WA has no income tax and their schools aren’t worse. Oregon has no sales tax and their schools aren’t worse. Are CA public schools by far the best in the nation? ( they are not) Edit: before you jump into the “other means funding” - I lived (and owned house) in WA and CA and the overall tax burden is MUCH higher in CA
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • bun_at_work 7y ago
        Clearly those states fun schools through other means :).
      • mc32 7y ago
        What’s more is MA has many if the best public schools and Romneycare (at 3% uninsured, that’s the lowest amongst the 50 states) and its taxes aren’t higher than CA’s. CA somehow manages to waste a lot of money. SF has city budgets higher than some states and still says it needs more money.
        • jinushaun 7y ago
          I don’t think it’s necessarily waste. It’s cost of living. If city employees need to make 6 figures just to be able to afford living in the city, of courses taxes will be higher to compensate. High taxes with zero improvement in services.
• agumonkey 7y ago
  Is the idea isn't that economy is far from efficient and that this cost will be recouped by having people way more productive and happier (thus not faking illnesses, idleing at work they don't enjoy) ?
• gedy 7y ago
  It's mainly a try at introducing a VAT, populist UBI stuff is probably secondary goal
  • mcv 7y ago
    VAT seems an odd way to fund Basic Income. It should be part of the income tax system. I believe Friedman called it a negative income tax. If it's a livable BI, it should replace welfare and similar benefits.
    • ameister14 7y ago
      I actually think income tax is a pretty odd way to fund UBI. VAT makes more sense to me as it's a use tax
    • AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > VAT seems an odd way to fund Basic Income. It actually makes a lot of sense, because the primary benefit of using income tax is the progressive rate structure, but for a tax funding a UBI you actually want a flat rate because the tax is the de facto phase out of the benefit. We currently have two systems that basically invert each other. On the one hand, we have a progressive tax. On the other hand, we phase out assistance for the poor as incomes increase. These two things cancel out. With a UBI you "pay more tax" but you don't lose the assistance. When the assistance is cash that's a no-op. Except that administratively it's dramatically simpler -- you don't have to vary the tax based on how much money anybody makes, you don't create arbitrage opportunities for rich people to pay lower tax rates intended for poor people, you don't accidentally create poverty traps by imposing de facto higher marginal rates on lower income people than higher income people due to overlapping benefits phase outs, etc.
    • zoonosis 7y ago
      I believe the US already has a negative income tax, the EITC.
• lucozade 7y ago
  This is just a guess but the GDP of California is estimated to be around $3tn. So $300bn is approx 10% GDP. So, by VAT, maybe they mean a 10% haircut on absolutely everything?
  • SllX 7y ago
    Nope. This link appears to be the Bill text which I’ll peruse in a moment, but here’s the Newsweek article I was reading last night. https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-would-give-nearly-every-californian-1000-month-similar-andrew-yangs-freedom-dividend-1488547 https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-would-give-nearly-every-ca... And the relevant bit: “The program would be paid for with a state value-added tax of 10 percent on goods and services, with exemptions for groceries, medicine, medical supplies, clothing, textbooks and other items. Recipients of several programs, including the state's Medicaid plan, would be ineligible.” Not to wax too political here, but the insane part to me isn’t even the UBI bit which I’m not fond of but open to changing my view in the coming decades, the insane part is the introduction of a new type of tax we previously didn’t have, and near as I can tell isn’t intended to replace the sales tax, and not just a new tax, but at a pretty high rate. Actually you know what? I just looked at the bill text, it was less than I thought and it was more insane than I thought. Here’s section 2: “SEC. 2. It is the intent of the Legislature to fund the CalUBI Program with a value-added tax of 10 percent on goods and services, except medicine, medical supplies and equipment, educational materials, including textbooks, tuition or fees for education, food, groceries, and clothing.” It is the intent of the legislature to fund it with a VAT, and if you know anything at all about California law, then you probably know that means a ballot measure which will need 2/3 support from the electorate. Theoretically that ballot measure could be used to replace the sales tax, but it probably won’t be because only part of the sales tax is State, and much of it is appropriated by law to fund very specific projects or programs.
  • moralestapia 7y ago
    "It's easy, we only need 10% of the total economic output of California" Whew ...
    • bryanlarsen 7y ago
• JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Maybe its not the general population that will foot the bill. Also, if other state benefits were reduce, that would change the math. It's easy to throw around FUD. But anything that redistributes wealth from the top 0.1% is the right direction.
  • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    > But anything that redistributes wealth from the top 0.1% is the right direction. No. No, it's not. There are several ways to do it that are very much not the right direction. (See Venezuela for a couterexample.) Note well: This does not mean that this specific proposal is in the wrong direction (though I suspect it is). I merely mean that "just take it from the 0.1%, it will all work out" is a very inadequate failure mode analysis.
• JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  If you double taxes, but the money is literally just going back into people's pockets, less administration fees of the UBI program, it's just income redistribution and can completely work.
  • jngreenlee 7y ago
    >less administration fees of the UBI program Show me a success story where this didn't become a gigantic suck on the funds
    • AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      There are many valid criticisms of social security, but the administrative costs are less than one percent.
  • dingo_bat 7y ago
    Least admin fees is when my money stays in my pocket.
  • alistairSH 7y ago
    Read the bill - many of CA's existing welfare programs are staying in place. Their INCREASING admin costs with this bill. UBI should replace most/all other welfare programs, if reducing admin costs is a goal.
    • the_gastropod 7y ago
      I think GP's use of "less" meant "subtract", not that it would decrease the administrative costs of welfare programs. I don't think you can realistically (or ethically) get rid of welfare programs when introducing UBI. This is the issue I had with Andrew Yang's "Freedom Dividend" proposal, too. Some people are bad at managing money or have emergencies $12k won't cover. As a society, we cannot allow them to starve in the street because of this.
      • gremlinsinc 7y ago
• hedora 7y ago
  Excluding food, education, medical, and a few other expenses, you need to spend $10k / month to come out behind on this bill. That’s $120K/year. Assuming a 33% effective income tax rate, that’s $180k, pre tax, no savings, or expenses for food, etc. That’s well into the 80th percentile income bracket in CA, and it’s probably possible to be in the 90th percentile and still come out ahead (factor in retirement savings, college, etc): https://statisticalatlas.com/state/California/Household-Income https://statisticalatlas.com/state/California/Household-Inco... Re-reading your comment, this is probably just another way of saying the math doesn’t work out. Income or property tax increases are probably necessary.
  • Shivetya 7y ago
    Considering what it excludes the rich will make out like bandits compared to those it claims to help. They already spend less of their incomes on consumption while at the same spend a much higher amount on luxury versions of those categories. As with any government tax and benefits program, it is what comes out of committee that will truly matter. VAT taxes usually land harder on the middle class than upper or lower simply because of how people typically spend their income. They are great though at masking the cost of government and increases in the cost and goods of services is more likely to be put upon the provider of each rather than government. Reducing costs, fines, and fees for required government services and licensing would go a lot further to reducing the burden on the poor, that $36 driving license renewal doesn't look annoying at 120k but at 25k it means something.
• AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Now, assuming the most generous interpretation of their 10% VAT proposal... which means a 10% VAT on things like rent, transportation, etc. CA has around 11.5mil households with apx $40k/household of spending, which yields $460bil @ 10% => $46bil in additional tax revenue. The median income in California is $75k, not $40k. On top of that, this is an alternative to existing assistance programs, so you either get to recover the money spent on those or you get to remove the people who continue to receive them from the population receiving the UBI. I'm not saying the numbers for this bill necessarily balance, but you're using the wrong ones. > They would have to more than double the tax revenue for a state with already very high taxes. Nominal tax rate with a UBI has to be discounted by the full amount of the UBI, because you're not paying it if you're getting it back. It obviously doesn't hurt you to pay $10,000 more in taxes if you're then receiving a $12,000 UBI. This confuses the heck out of people because it means that a UBI costs "nothing" -- but that's how it works. It's purely redistributive. It doesn't cost anything on net, it only moves money around. At the individual level, it costs people above the median something, but still not the amount of the tax, only the difference between the UBI and the amount of the tax. The rest they get back.
• superkuh 7y ago
  All they have to do is change the way the current basic income system works. Right now basic income is granted to any corporate bank with charter. They are free to create M0 money out of thin air as debt on their balance sheets to loan out money that they don't have (fractional reserve). There are about 4500 commercial banks in the USA. If California simply assumed this role of money creation within the state it'd have more than enough to distribute for a universal basic income instead of the normal centralized basic income to corporations that then filters out according to their whims.