Along with the bipartisan trend toward authoritarianism is a bipartisan trend away from economic freedom. Some want to hinder our ability to trade with Chinese

Along with the bipartisan trend toward authoritarianism is a bipartisan trend away from economic freedom. Some want to hinder our ability to trade with Chinese firms or hire foreign workers, others want to hinder our ability to take gig economy jobs or operate our home as an Airbnb. The idea that these authoritarians have is that economic freedom is bad. Why not just make laws that very specifically protect the most vulnerable and foist the tax burden fairly on everyone else? It's a historical accident that employee provided healthcare is tax deductible and that workers comp and social security/medicare are funded by payroll taxes. All of the quirky rules and perverse incentives exist because at some point in the past they benefited some established interest group. There is a very disappointing lack of creativity and willingness to look at the simple issue at the core of all of these problems. We can't let the most vulnerable workers be victimized, but we must do everything possible to preserve their economic freedom. I think UBI is the closest we are seeing to a meaningful rethink of how we handle entitlement spending. We need the equivalent creativity to help manage the funding side.