I’m just responding to the common claim that means-testing UBI would be expensive relative to the expenditures of the program (well-illustrated by the quote “ap

I’m just responding to the common claim that means-testing UBI would be expensive relative to the expenditures of the program (well-illustrated by the quote “appropriating dollars to save pennies“ in the comment I responded to). This is a quantitative question, not a moral one. I don’t think it serves the movement to be making arguments that are obviously wrong if you do a bit of easy research or math, or just think critically about it. It makes the advocacy less credible. Since most people only read comments online and don’t post, you might not normally get any feedback from those who feel this way. > Furthermore, you can solve the same problem just by increasing taxes on the rich. If you send every rich person $12k, but also tax them $12k more per year, the money spent/saved is exactly the same as not sending it to them in the first place. This argument assumes you are identifying wealthy people, so again, it doesn’t support the claim that the overhead of identifying wealthy people will make UBI more expensive.