10 ms·

Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

57 points by SubiculumCode 6y ago

bsanr2 6y ago
Now is the time to watch closely. When Pelosi got on board healthcare reform, we lost the public option. The chances that her support is a mask for a campaign to water down any potential legislation are high.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Can you explain? My recollection is that there was too much squabbling within the Democrat party to achieve it, with moderates wavering. And with the Senate putting in a watered down public option, it killed any chance for the House to submit tgeir own.
  - mkr-hn 6y ago
    Not the person you replied to, but there are different narratives for it: "Democrats didn't want it because their insurance company sponsors didn't want it." "Democrats didn't fight for it because they needed votes from a few people who wouldn't support it." I'm partial to the view that they could have motivated those few senators to vote for a public option if they tried. Democrats wave their hands too much on the viability of progressive policy for my taste. Whether the belief in that unviability is genuine or a smokescreen is uncertain.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    I remember Lieberman and Baucus derailing the effort. And Obama didn’t have the courage to pound the table back then.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    It could have been passed through reconciliation IIRC. They didn't, in a bid to insulate the final bill against GOP objections to the legislation as a whole. We all know how that turned out.
- Donald 6y ago
  The senate dropped the public option under threat of a Joe Lieberman (independent former democrat who caucused with the democrats) filibuster: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/why-lieberman-hates-the-public-option/347740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/why-lie... I don’t recall if the public option was ever included in the house bill. Do you?
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0363 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.... >On 12 March 2010, as she prepared for her final push to pass reform legislation, House Speaker Pbbnelosi shut the door on using reconciliation to preserve the public option. While citing the lack of support in the Senate, Pelosi was also aware of the deep concerns that moderates in her caucus had regarding the public option. The narrow vote (219–212) in the House on 21 March 2010 suggests that every possible vote was needed. The House passed the Senate bill (HR 3590) and the reconciliation bill without a public option. It was included in several House versions of the bill coming out of committee. She didn't fight for it. In fact, she heralded its loss as a win for bipartisanship and her own negotiation campaign.
- standardUser 6y ago
  There was never any chance the Senate was going to support a public option when Obamacare was being developed. It was a non-starter.
jjtheblunt 6y ago
How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.
- cheez 6y ago
  Yang's was well considered, I'm sure it's still on his website.
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  What are the options? - Taxes - Debt - Money printing
- generalpass 6y ago
  We'll have to pass the bill to find out!
- cultus 6y ago
  The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has started, alone. That is why the S&P is back up to where it was in 2018, despite the world suffering the greatest demand shock in history. Pumping up the financial markets is doing nowhere near the economic good that a UBI would right now.
  - xur17 6y ago
    I agree that worries of inflation are unwarranted (if anything we are at risk of deflation), but what happens after the economy returns? Aren't we at risk of inflation from all of the new money dumped into the economy?
    - 6y ago
munificent 6y ago
I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services. Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amount of water, electricity, Internet access, and some amount of food are other good candidates. (Shelter is a much harder problem to solve and one where I think going through money is probably a better approach.) I'd much rather see every person be given a reasonable amount of food, water, electricity, Internet access, and good healtcare. That is almost enough to lift people out of poverty and give them enough safety and security to enable them to live healthy, successful lives. Then maybe see if it makes sense to provide money too. But my hunch is that UBI itself isn't a great solution. You can think of it effectively as a negative tax rate for the poor. The UBI has to be paid for by other taxes, so at some income/wealth level you will be breaking even and above that you will be paying for the UBI for people under. I think that structure is perfectly fine for moral reasons, but looking at it from that perspective, it's not clear to me how simply having a relatively minor negative tax rate will solve the systemic problems faced by the poor. Getting a check for a hundred bucks every month isn't going to fix everything if you break your back and need a million dollars in healthcare. What people need to thrive is security the knowledge that if unfortunate events outside of their control happen, that they will be helped to the degree that society is able. If you know you can be made bankrupt if you get sick, or your access to water can be shut off if someone robs you, then you are "poor" in all of the ways that subjectively matter.
- godzillabrennus 6y ago
  Governments that centrally plan all the basic necessities you outline are terrible at all of them. Democide tends to happen as government collects more power in the process. Letting government give a basic income and the private sector filling supply is a much more reasonable solution. Let’s a free market exist to satisfy demand while recognizing the end of jobs is about here.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
spking 6y ago
I'm sure we could find the money for this by eliminating existing duplicative or particularly wasteful line items in the fountain of corporate pork, waste and fraud that is the federal budget. https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/
- hyperpape 6y ago
  The federal budget was $4.11 trillion in 2018. Quick Googling doesn't give me a number for population over 18, but I'm going to guess >= 200 million (>= 300 million total in the US). So that's 200M people * (12 months / year) * 1000 / person = 2.4 trillion. Most of the budget is defense, social security, medicare and interest on the debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:US_Federal_Budget_Comparison_2016_vs._2015.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...). Yang's plan would've required major tax increases, and/or cuts to core programs. This isn't me editorializing, just stating what would be required.
legitster 6y ago
Honestly, it costs about the same to implement as Medicare for All, but I would much prefer a UBI. Imagine if everyone had a catastrophic healthcare plan that was essentially an out-of-pocket maximum of $12,000. And then everyone gets $12,000 a year to spend on healthcare - or anything else.
lootsauce 6y ago
What I keep thinking about all of this is that an open, functioning, well regulated, free market economy (not defending crony-capitalism like we have had) with targeted generous welfare programs is a far better solution than UBI and other massive fiscal interventions/bailouts/helicopter money. Here is my concern and would love to hear any reasoned arguments as to why it is not a problem. It is a lot of money, and eventually the money comes out of something, be it the increased prices from increased buying power in the market or the loss of buying power due to slippage against inflation driven by government spending debasing the currency. (they are two sids of the same coin i guess) It wont happen immediately, this is a massive deflationary shock right now, but surely helicopter money will do what is intended and drive inflation eventually undermining the intended effect of UBI in the first place. The economy is dynamic and reflexive, if everyone knows that everyone is getting x amount of money increased demand and information in the market will drive prices quickly higher. Government planners will eventually seek ways to mitigate this outcome, perhaps by pegging UBI payments to inflation or enacting price controls on say rents or taxes to take money out of circulation perhaps through a VAT. Either way this is the long-run nightmare of more directly managing an economy from the top down. And I fear that it is a road that leads to a far less dynamic, creative and self sustaining economy. The intended economic foundation for everyone that UBI seeks to provide may prove to be a short term benefit and eventually become a complex game of trying to control a very complex system.
lcall 6y ago
To the extent that we remove the connection between choices and consequences, we harm everyone. This applies in so many ways. This includes things like lifestyle, including habits, striving to learn & build good family ties, honesty, choosing to pursue education and service, more than just entertainment and pleasure (but with appropriate balance), trustworthiness, avoiding self-destructive behaviors, etc etc. All which greatly affect employability! But if we make it easily survivable to live on the wrong side of those...what do we encourage? At ever-greater cost to everyone... Think we have a drug problem now? Some consistently very bad experiences with medicare's and SSA's organizational incompetence (as reflected in ability to provide remotely useful information over many weeks and months, etc) make me definitely not want the federal government to take ever-more resources and control of our economy and lives. I do believe we are responsible (before God, and if one doesn't believe, then at least to our consciences) to care wisely for one another, and with personal sacrifice to do so -- but not by force. I also believe, with a fair amount of observation and study among myself and family, that things resembling forcible socialism (or the fed. government solving everyone's problems instead of being strictly limited to its constitutional role) are also harmful to everyone and have been proven many times to be a disastrous failure (Soviets, Venezuela, etc etc). Charity by force is wrong and foolish, from Christian principle, long historical observation, and (to me at least), logic. Charitable service done voluntarily by individuals, organizations, families, communities, maybe even states who can then learn from each other what works vs. not, can be wonderful, and I and many others have seen it work in long-term multifaceted practice. But when we force a system on everyone -- bad things happen, in the short and long run. We can go out and do good and solve problems, by joining with others, using persuasion and fundraising, creating jobs programs (not federal), promoting good ideas, seeing what has worked well elsewhere, but not by forcibly taking control of others people's money (which represents their time and energy, planning and preparation) and thus a loss of freedom for all. Every crisis should not be an excuse to expand control by some, over others. I have written many more details about this & related subjects at my web site, which is in my profile. I very much hope we can promote principles over politics, such as: earned trust matters; opportunity, honesty and the Golden Rule matter; charity is important, charity by force is wrong, and breaking the link between choices and consequences harms everyone.
wayneftw 6y ago
IMO you can't have long term success for basic income without coupling it with population control measures such as requiring a license to have a baby and/or limiting the number of babies people can have. I fully support requiring a license to have a baby.
RickJWagner 6y ago
Dangling the idea seems like a good way to attract hopeful voters. But let's see the plan for paying for such a program.

57 points by SubiculumCode 6y ago

Now is the time to watch closely. When Pelosi got on board healthcare reform, we lost the public option. The chances that her support is a mask for a campaign to water down any potential legislation are high.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
Can you explain? My recollection is that there was too much squabbling within the Democrat party to achieve it, with moderates wavering. And with the Senate putting in a watered down public option, it killed any chance for the House to submit tgeir own.
- mkr-hn 6y ago
  Not the person you replied to, but there are different narratives for it: "Democrats didn't want it because their insurance company sponsors didn't want it." "Democrats didn't fight for it because they needed votes from a few people who wouldn't support it." I'm partial to the view that they could have motivated those few senators to vote for a public option if they tried. Democrats wave their hands too much on the viability of progressive policy for my taste. Whether the belief in that unviability is genuine or a smokescreen is uncertain.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  I remember Lieberman and Baucus derailing the effort. And Obama didn’t have the courage to pound the table back then.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  It could have been passed through reconciliation IIRC. They didn't, in a bid to insulate the final bill against GOP objections to the legislation as a whole. We all know how that turned out.
Donald 6y ago
The senate dropped the public option under threat of a Joe Lieberman (independent former democrat who caucused with the democrats) filibuster: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/why-lieberman-hates-the-public-option/347740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/why-lie... I don’t recall if the public option was ever included in the house bill. Do you?
- bsanr2 6y ago
  https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0363 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.... >On 12 March 2010, as she prepared for her final push to pass reform legislation, House Speaker Pbbnelosi shut the door on using reconciliation to preserve the public option. While citing the lack of support in the Senate, Pelosi was also aware of the deep concerns that moderates in her caucus had regarding the public option. The narrow vote (219–212) in the House on 21 March 2010 suggests that every possible vote was needed. The House passed the Senate bill (HR 3590) and the reconciliation bill without a public option. It was included in several House versions of the bill coming out of committee. She didn't fight for it. In fact, she heralded its loss as a win for bipartisanship and her own negotiation campaign.
standardUser 6y ago
There was never any chance the Senate was going to support a public option when Obamacare was being developed. It was a non-starter.

jjtheblunt 6y ago

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

cheez 6y ago
Yang's was well considered, I'm sure it's still on his website.
therealdrag0 6y ago
What are the options? - Taxes - Debt - Money printing
generalpass 6y ago
We'll have to pass the bill to find out!
cultus 6y ago
The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has started, alone. That is why the S&P is back up to where it was in 2018, despite the world suffering the greatest demand shock in history. Pumping up the financial markets is doing nowhere near the economic good that a UBI would right now.
- xur17 6y ago
  I agree that worries of inflation are unwarranted (if anything we are at risk of deflation), but what happens after the economy returns? Aren't we at risk of inflation from all of the new money dumped into the economy?
  - 6y ago

munificent 6y ago

I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services. Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amount of water, electricity, Internet access, and some amount of food are other good candidates. (Shelter is a much harder problem to solve and one where I think going through money is probably a better approach.) I'd much rather see every person be given a reasonable amount of food, water, electricity, Internet access, and good healtcare. That is almost enough to lift people out of poverty and give them enough safety and security to enable them to live healthy, successful lives. Then maybe see if it makes sense to provide money too. But my hunch is that UBI itself isn't a great solution. You can think of it effectively as a negative tax rate for the poor. The UBI has to be paid for by other taxes, so at some income/wealth level you will be breaking even and above that you will be paying for the UBI for people under. I think that structure is perfectly fine for moral reasons, but looking at it from that perspective, it's not clear to me how simply having a relatively minor negative tax rate will solve the systemic problems faced by the poor. Getting a check for a hundred bucks every month isn't going to fix everything if you break your back and need a million dollars in healthcare. What people need to thrive is security the knowledge that if unfortunate events outside of their control happen, that they will be helped to the degree that society is able. If you know you can be made bankrupt if you get sick, or your access to water can be shut off if someone robs you, then you are "poor" in all of the ways that subjectively matter.

godzillabrennus 6y ago
Governments that centrally plan all the basic necessities you outline are terrible at all of them. Democide tends to happen as government collects more power in the process. Letting government give a basic income and the private sector filling supply is a much more reasonable solution. Let’s a free market exist to satisfy demand while recognizing the end of jobs is about here.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago

spking 6y ago

I'm sure we could find the money for this by eliminating existing duplicative or particularly wasteful line items in the fountain of corporate pork, waste and fraud that is the federal budget. https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/

hyperpape 6y ago
The federal budget was $4.11 trillion in 2018. Quick Googling doesn't give me a number for population over 18, but I'm going to guess >= 200 million (>= 300 million total in the US). So that's 200M people * (12 months / year) * 1000 / person = 2.4 trillion. Most of the budget is defense, social security, medicare and interest on the debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:US_Federal_Budget_Comparison_2016_vs._2015.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...). Yang's plan would've required major tax increases, and/or cuts to core programs. This isn't me editorializing, just stating what would be required.

legitster 6y ago

Honestly, it costs about the same to implement as Medicare for All, but I would much prefer a UBI. Imagine if everyone had a catastrophic healthcare plan that was essentially an out-of-pocket maximum of $12,000. And then everyone gets $12,000 a year to spend on healthcare - or anything else.

lootsauce 6y ago

What I keep thinking about all of this is that an open, functioning, well regulated, free market economy (not defending crony-capitalism like we have had) with targeted generous welfare programs is a far better solution than UBI and other massive fiscal interventions/bailouts/helicopter money. Here is my concern and would love to hear any reasoned arguments as to why it is not a problem. It is a lot of money, and eventually the money comes out of something, be it the increased prices from increased buying power in the market or the loss of buying power due to slippage against inflation driven by government spending debasing the currency. (they are two sids of the same coin i guess) It wont happen immediately, this is a massive deflationary shock right now, but surely helicopter money will do what is intended and drive inflation eventually undermining the intended effect of UBI in the first place. The economy is dynamic and reflexive, if everyone knows that everyone is getting x amount of money increased demand and information in the market will drive prices quickly higher. Government planners will eventually seek ways to mitigate this outcome, perhaps by pegging UBI payments to inflation or enacting price controls on say rents or taxes to take money out of circulation perhaps through a VAT. Either way this is the long-run nightmare of more directly managing an economy from the top down. And I fear that it is a road that leads to a far less dynamic, creative and self sustaining economy. The intended economic foundation for everyone that UBI seeks to provide may prove to be a short term benefit and eventually become a complex game of trying to control a very complex system.

lcall 6y ago

To the extent that we remove the connection between choices and consequences, we harm everyone. This applies in so many ways. This includes things like lifestyle, including habits, striving to learn & build good family ties, honesty, choosing to pursue education and service, more than just entertainment and pleasure (but with appropriate balance), trustworthiness, avoiding self-destructive behaviors, etc etc. All which greatly affect employability! But if we make it easily survivable to live on the wrong side of those...what do we encourage? At ever-greater cost to everyone... Think we have a drug problem now? Some consistently very bad experiences with medicare's and SSA's organizational incompetence (as reflected in ability to provide remotely useful information over many weeks and months, etc) make me definitely not want the federal government to take ever-more resources and control of our economy and lives. I do believe we are responsible (before God, and if one doesn't believe, then at least to our consciences) to care wisely for one another, and with personal sacrifice to do so -- but not by force. I also believe, with a fair amount of observation and study among myself and family, that things resembling forcible socialism (or the fed. government solving everyone's problems instead of being strictly limited to its constitutional role) are also harmful to everyone and have been proven many times to be a disastrous failure (Soviets, Venezuela, etc etc). Charity by force is wrong and foolish, from Christian principle, long historical observation, and (to me at least), logic. Charitable service done voluntarily by individuals, organizations, families, communities, maybe even states who can then learn from each other what works vs. not, can be wonderful, and I and many others have seen it work in long-term multifaceted practice. But when we force a system on everyone -- bad things happen, in the short and long run. We can go out and do good and solve problems, by joining with others, using persuasion and fundraising, creating jobs programs (not federal), promoting good ideas, seeing what has worked well elsewhere, but not by forcibly taking control of others people's money (which represents their time and energy, planning and preparation) and thus a loss of freedom for all. Every crisis should not be an excuse to expand control by some, over others. I have written many more details about this & related subjects at my web site, which is in my profile. I very much hope we can promote principles over politics, such as: earned trust matters; opportunity, honesty and the Golden Rule matter; charity is important, charity by force is wrong, and breaking the link between choices and consequences harms everyone.

wayneftw 6y ago

IMO you can't have long term success for basic income without coupling it with population control measures such as requiring a license to have a baby and/or limiting the number of babies people can have. I fully support requiring a license to have a baby.

RickJWagner 6y ago

Dangling the idea seems like a good way to attract hopeful voters. But let's see the plan for paying for such a program.