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Basic income on top of everything else doesn't make much sense (cost-wise). But if we could trade B.I. for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other

Basic income on top of everything else doesn't make much sense (cost-wise). But if we could trade B.I. for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other social progams-- it would probably be more cost efficient as individuals look after their money better than other people do. Here's a video from Milton Friedman (not Tom Friedman!) who is advocating for a negative income tax-- a variation of basic income. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

steveklabnik 13y ago
The article directly addresses this point: > The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state pension.
effn 13y ago
You can't use Social Security funds to fund a Basic Income. It operates similarly to a pension fund so it would be equivalent to confiscate peoples lifetime savings. Good luck explaining that to someone who is just about to retire.
- derefr 13y ago
  You can, however, say that going forward, people will pay into basic income instead of social security; and that no one born after [policy-change date] will receive social security in the future (since they never paid into it.)
  - effn 13y ago
    Possible in theory. But then you have to explain to people why they are paying the same amount of tax as people one year older than them, but will still receive a lot less when they retire.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      It needn't be a sharp cutoff.
    - danielweber 13y ago
      That's coming anyway. For the record, you have zero ownership rights in your SS benefits. They can be changed at will.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > You can't use Social Security funds to fund a Basic Income. Yes, you can. > It operates similarly to a pension fund It presents itself as one, but it really operates as a general-tax-supported social-benefit program with a variety of eligibility criteria. > so it would be equivalent to confiscate peoples lifetime savings. Sure, some people would politically attack it that way, particularly if the general BI reduced the SS benefits to which people already qualified would receive. Its less subject to this political attack, however, if SS is merged into BI in such a way that no one currently paid into SS ends up with less BI at any point than they would have received from SS.
king_jester 13y ago
Medicare and medicaid wouldn't really apply so much to this as there are systemic problems that make spending money on healthcare not such a good idea. Rather, with a BI we should also include a universal health care option to avoid the issues with consumer healthcare spending and marketing.
- ticviking 13y ago
  Let consumers face those issues and watch as the market responds to consumers who are paying cash.
  - Jd 13y ago
    The problem is that when consumer make bad decisions (i.e. don't go to the doctor and develop serious health problems), the government in the end still has to foot the bill. You can't turn people away from emergency rooms and have them die on the street.
    - stephensikes 13y ago
      Indeed, but the point is that with BI, they would be on the hook for those excess costs. Preventative medicine is cheaper and when the excess cost of an ER visit comes directly out of patients' pockets, they will be more diligent about prevention. Good analogy is car maintenance. Most people are very diligent about oil changes because they (inherently, I would argue) recognize the cost structure.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - ceol 13y ago
        A lot of people aren't very diligent. It just so happens the old mantra of "every 3,000 miles" doesn't apply to newer cars, so when people forget and do it at 6,000 or 8,000, there aren't any negative effects. And I would say people don't change their oil because they know their engine will die if they go too long. They do it because it's been ingrained in their head as required maintenance, and that sort of thing is normally taken care of nowadays in a much larger package that includes filters and belts (because people vaguely remember about oil, but they're clueless about the other things.) I'm not the one you were responding to, but my point here is that people aren't going to ensure prevention without a ton of conditioning or some greater authority forcing them to do so. The voter turnout for Australia, where people are forced by law to vote, was 93% in 2010.[0] In the USA? 41%.[1] People can't be asked to run over to their local elementary school for 20 minutes and pick the first name that pops into their head once every four years, so I doubt any sort of repercussion not mandated by law will have an effect. [0]: http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=15 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=15 [1]: http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=231 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=231
twoodfin 13y ago
I agree, but unfortunately I don't think "basic income and no other welfare programs" is a politically stable policy. No sooner will it have been introduced than politicians will be tempted to screw with it to help a favored constituency. Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI. Live in an area damaged by a hurricane? We'll bump your BI for a year or two. I don't think a "simpler" tax code would last much longer for the same reason. The only way I think it could actually work is if we turned over the whole thing to a bunch of unelected technocrats like the Fed (which might not be a terrible idea since it gives them another lever on economic policy...)
- Vivtek 13y ago
  Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI. So ... politicians would suddenly start to pay people to teach in the inner city? Those scoundrels! I can see why you're opposed to this concept.
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    One of the proposed advantages of BI is its simplicity (which among other things means few loopholes and lower enforcement overhead). The point the poster you quote is making is that no tax code will remain simple for very long. In fact you support that point. Many of the complexities we have now come from adding "just one more feature" to the tax code, until we end up with something so complex that there is an entire industry built up around paying taxes. If he said "In exchange for supporting inner-city teachers, we will be indirectly subsidizing H&R Block to the tune of $2B" you might ponder whether or not it's worth it.
    - zanny 13y ago
      Why not? If you get BI out of any political process, you already had a majority in support of the simplification. It just requires vigilance, which our current track record for is terrible, but any economic system or any political process requires vigilance, and a BI isn't any different. It is true that over the entire history of the United States, the American public has proven itself apathetic to the abuses of their politicians, but that is a cultural problem that needs to be solved regardless of having a basic income or not.
adestefan 13y ago
There already is a negative income tax. It's called the Earned Income Tax Credit. The only catch on the EITC is that it's based on both income and the number of qualifying children.

steveklabnik 13y ago

The article directly addresses this point: > The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state pension.

effn 13y ago

You can't use Social Security funds to fund a Basic Income. It operates similarly to a pension fund so it would be equivalent to confiscate peoples lifetime savings. Good luck explaining that to someone who is just about to retire.

derefr 13y ago
You can, however, say that going forward, people will pay into basic income instead of social security; and that no one born after [policy-change date] will receive social security in the future (since they never paid into it.)
- effn 13y ago
  Possible in theory. But then you have to explain to people why they are paying the same amount of tax as people one year older than them, but will still receive a lot less when they retire.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    It needn't be a sharp cutoff.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    That's coming anyway. For the record, you have zero ownership rights in your SS benefits. They can be changed at will.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 13y ago
> You can't use Social Security funds to fund a Basic Income. Yes, you can. > It operates similarly to a pension fund It presents itself as one, but it really operates as a general-tax-supported social-benefit program with a variety of eligibility criteria. > so it would be equivalent to confiscate peoples lifetime savings. Sure, some people would politically attack it that way, particularly if the general BI reduced the SS benefits to which people already qualified would receive. Its less subject to this political attack, however, if SS is merged into BI in such a way that no one currently paid into SS ends up with less BI at any point than they would have received from SS.

king_jester 13y ago

Medicare and medicaid wouldn't really apply so much to this as there are systemic problems that make spending money on healthcare not such a good idea. Rather, with a BI we should also include a universal health care option to avoid the issues with consumer healthcare spending and marketing.

ticviking 13y ago
Let consumers face those issues and watch as the market responds to consumers who are paying cash.
- Jd 13y ago
  The problem is that when consumer make bad decisions (i.e. don't go to the doctor and develop serious health problems), the government in the end still has to foot the bill. You can't turn people away from emergency rooms and have them die on the street.
  - stephensikes 13y ago
    Indeed, but the point is that with BI, they would be on the hook for those excess costs. Preventative medicine is cheaper and when the excess cost of an ER visit comes directly out of patients' pockets, they will be more diligent about prevention. Good analogy is car maintenance. Most people are very diligent about oil changes because they (inherently, I would argue) recognize the cost structure.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - ceol 13y ago
      A lot of people aren't very diligent. It just so happens the old mantra of "every 3,000 miles" doesn't apply to newer cars, so when people forget and do it at 6,000 or 8,000, there aren't any negative effects. And I would say people don't change their oil because they know their engine will die if they go too long. They do it because it's been ingrained in their head as required maintenance, and that sort of thing is normally taken care of nowadays in a much larger package that includes filters and belts (because people vaguely remember about oil, but they're clueless about the other things.) I'm not the one you were responding to, but my point here is that people aren't going to ensure prevention without a ton of conditioning or some greater authority forcing them to do so. The voter turnout for Australia, where people are forced by law to vote, was 93% in 2010.[0] In the USA? 41%.[1] People can't be asked to run over to their local elementary school for 20 minutes and pick the first name that pops into their head once every four years, so I doubt any sort of repercussion not mandated by law will have an effect. [0]: http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=15 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=15 [1]: http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=231 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=231

twoodfin 13y ago

I agree, but unfortunately I don't think "basic income and no other welfare programs" is a politically stable policy. No sooner will it have been introduced than politicians will be tempted to screw with it to help a favored constituency. Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI. Live in an area damaged by a hurricane? We'll bump your BI for a year or two. I don't think a "simpler" tax code would last much longer for the same reason. The only way I think it could actually work is if we turned over the whole thing to a bunch of unelected technocrats like the Fed (which might not be a terrible idea since it gives them another lever on economic policy...)

Vivtek 13y ago
Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI. So ... politicians would suddenly start to pay people to teach in the inner city? Those scoundrels! I can see why you're opposed to this concept.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  One of the proposed advantages of BI is its simplicity (which among other things means few loopholes and lower enforcement overhead). The point the poster you quote is making is that no tax code will remain simple for very long. In fact you support that point. Many of the complexities we have now come from adding "just one more feature" to the tax code, until we end up with something so complex that there is an entire industry built up around paying taxes. If he said "In exchange for supporting inner-city teachers, we will be indirectly subsidizing H&R Block to the tune of $2B" you might ponder whether or not it's worth it.
  - zanny 13y ago
    Why not? If you get BI out of any political process, you already had a majority in support of the simplification. It just requires vigilance, which our current track record for is terrible, but any economic system or any political process requires vigilance, and a BI isn't any different. It is true that over the entire history of the United States, the American public has proven itself apathetic to the abuses of their politicians, but that is a cultural problem that needs to be solved regardless of having a basic income or not.

adestefan 13y ago

There already is a negative income tax. It's called the Earned Income Tax Credit. The only catch on the EITC is that it's based on both income and the number of qualifying children.