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I've come around to generally agree with the basic income guarantee. Both in premise of the problem and how it tackles the. What I don't believe is that the pr

by mtanski 12y ago

I've come around to generally agree with the basic income guarantee. Both in premise of the problem and how it tackles the. What I don't believe is that the problem is tenable in the United States. At least, I can't see it happening today. For starters there is a whole portion of the population that will see this as people free loading. This a sizable part of the population that believes all "hand-outs" are bad even if it ends up saving us money in the long run. Second, the government being the largest employer (second largest I believe if we elude the military.) I have a hard time seeing this happen due to political pressure since a sizable number of jobs would be cut... since they are no longer needed to administer these complex programs. That's not a winning election proposition. Next, take into account local impact of places where government is close to the only employer. Look how much people fight to prevent military base closing in their district; doesn't matter where on the political/fiscal ideology they stand. Finally, there's the impact to the private sector which has cropped up to administer, provide or execute some of these programs. In a perfect world states would be better able to deal some of the local welfare issues. That brings an interesting opportunity for the federal government to vastly simplify welfare programs in something along the lines of BIG (and it self in the process). And then leaving local issues to the states. Poverty can look very different in NYC compared to Tennessee. Other types of welfare issues only are a major concern in some states and not others. It's could be a very... American solution to the problem. The downside is that some states can't be counted on doing the right thing (simple example: Civil Rights). Side node: I am not a libertarian, or anything official for that matter.

aaron-lebo 12y ago
I think you are right. I like the ideas behind it: it empowers people, decentralizes power, could spur innovation, and is actually something people on the far left and far right can agree upon. I also think it is hopelessly naive. You are talking about a change that would dismantle numerous massive government programs and completely restructure social and economic life in this country. Not only, as you pointed out, is that going to be very hard to push through both to the populace and within the parties themselves, but it is way too hand wavy. Every grand political idea has promised, "just do this and it will fix everything". But there's always unintended consequences, and in a policy this far-reaching, those possible consequences are wide-ranging. It just isn't going to happen without some massive shift in political opinion in the next few decades.
- justizin 12y ago
  "I also think it is hopelessly naive." This point of view, unfortunately, leads all conversations about changing the government down the road that nothing can be done. "It just isn't going to happen without some massive shift in political opinion in the next few decades." That's already underway as the American Democratic Party is becoming the marginalized moderate middle. There's always somewhere to start!
scarmig 12y ago
Politically, it seems that a possible (though not particularly likely) approach in the USA would be an expansion of Social Security to younger ages. Pretty much abolish SSDI, TANF, Medicaid, SCHIP and use the funds that went into them to partially fund the expansion. "Social Security for All" has a nice ring to it.
rayiner 12y ago
There's always quite a bit of handwaving when it comes to how much overhead would really be saved. How many of the federal government's 2.7 million workers have anything to do with qualifying welfare benefits? The social security administration employes about 70,000 people, and the centers for medicare and medicaid services employs about 4,000 people. A lot of people, much larger reductions in the federal workforce have been accomplished before. Plus, it's not like all those jobs suddenly go away. SSA does a lot more than qualify welfare benefits.
- mtanski 12y ago
  I think you're right, the headcount reduction number would most likely be conservative. But what I can imagine is that the overhead of administering multiple programs (some overlapping) is larger then just the salary and benefits costs. Something like a more wood behind fewer arrows ... applied to government. I'd like to see somebody else run the numbers on the "overhead" like a group of independent economist (eg. not me).
baddox 12y ago
> For starters there is a whole portion of the population that will see this as people free loading. This a sizable part of the population that believes all "hand-outs" are bad even if it ends up saving us money in the long run. I suspect another problem is that a significant portion of welfare recipients get way more than a feasible basic income system would provide. I bet this wouldn't get much traction for progressives or conservatives.
- mtanski 12y ago
  Hence my last point at states being better able to deal with issues in a more localized matter.
- ghkbrew 12y ago
  That's almost by definition. If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. Attempting to do that would be political suicide. "You're taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich!" The only realistic way something like a GBI would be implemented were if there were means testing involved.
  - baddox 12y ago
    > If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average.
    - justizin 12y ago
      Obviously you would want to design this in such a way that you do not decrease the average support to the poor, and while you would distribute it amongst the entire population, those of us with comfy incomes would have it recovered via taxes, by design. I would also expect it's possible to design a system that doesn't substantially reduce the income of existing welfare recipients. Most government programs seem to exclude people from other programs and it's a very complicated game to even know how to sign up for things. In fact, this is why my mother became a social worker, because she found it so difficult to get things like AFDC (replacement child support for families with deadbeat parents) and food stamps, even though we had a lot of advantages over other people who likely needed those things even more than we did. And sure, those jobs will disappear but in fact the turnover in a lot of these programs is very high, it's very tough to do this type of work for very long, few people spend an entire life working for a social service program, and those who do are often committing fraud - not to say there aren't certainly _some_ who do who work very hard and are honest.
thesteamboat 12y ago
Apologies from distracting from an otherwise well-written comment, but this caught my eye: > Second, the government being the largest employer (second largest I believe if we elude the military.) I can imagine this making sense if we exclude the military, but I certainly hope we're not currently living in some dystopia where it is necessary for upperwardly mobile citizens, such as ourselves, to hide from our government's armed forces.

by mtanski 12y ago

aaron-lebo 12y ago

I think you are right. I like the ideas behind it: it empowers people, decentralizes power, could spur innovation, and is actually something people on the far left and far right can agree upon. I also think it is hopelessly naive. You are talking about a change that would dismantle numerous massive government programs and completely restructure social and economic life in this country. Not only, as you pointed out, is that going to be very hard to push through both to the populace and within the parties themselves, but it is way too hand wavy. Every grand political idea has promised, "just do this and it will fix everything". But there's always unintended consequences, and in a policy this far-reaching, those possible consequences are wide-ranging. It just isn't going to happen without some massive shift in political opinion in the next few decades.

justizin 12y ago
"I also think it is hopelessly naive." This point of view, unfortunately, leads all conversations about changing the government down the road that nothing can be done. "It just isn't going to happen without some massive shift in political opinion in the next few decades." That's already underway as the American Democratic Party is becoming the marginalized moderate middle. There's always somewhere to start!

scarmig 12y ago

Politically, it seems that a possible (though not particularly likely) approach in the USA would be an expansion of Social Security to younger ages. Pretty much abolish SSDI, TANF, Medicaid, SCHIP and use the funds that went into them to partially fund the expansion. "Social Security for All" has a nice ring to it.

rayiner 12y ago

There's always quite a bit of handwaving when it comes to how much overhead would really be saved. How many of the federal government's 2.7 million workers have anything to do with qualifying welfare benefits? The social security administration employes about 70,000 people, and the centers for medicare and medicaid services employs about 4,000 people. A lot of people, much larger reductions in the federal workforce have been accomplished before. Plus, it's not like all those jobs suddenly go away. SSA does a lot more than qualify welfare benefits.

mtanski 12y ago
I think you're right, the headcount reduction number would most likely be conservative. But what I can imagine is that the overhead of administering multiple programs (some overlapping) is larger then just the salary and benefits costs. Something like a more wood behind fewer arrows ... applied to government. I'd like to see somebody else run the numbers on the "overhead" like a group of independent economist (eg. not me).

baddox 12y ago

> For starters there is a whole portion of the population that will see this as people free loading. This a sizable part of the population that believes all "hand-outs" are bad even if it ends up saving us money in the long run. I suspect another problem is that a significant portion of welfare recipients get way more than a feasible basic income system would provide. I bet this wouldn't get much traction for progressives or conservatives.

mtanski 12y ago
Hence my last point at states being better able to deal with issues in a more localized matter.
ghkbrew 12y ago
That's almost by definition. If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. Attempting to do that would be political suicide. "You're taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich!" The only realistic way something like a GBI would be implemented were if there were means testing involved.
- baddox 12y ago
  > If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average.
  - justizin 12y ago
    Obviously you would want to design this in such a way that you do not decrease the average support to the poor, and while you would distribute it amongst the entire population, those of us with comfy incomes would have it recovered via taxes, by design. I would also expect it's possible to design a system that doesn't substantially reduce the income of existing welfare recipients. Most government programs seem to exclude people from other programs and it's a very complicated game to even know how to sign up for things. In fact, this is why my mother became a social worker, because she found it so difficult to get things like AFDC (replacement child support for families with deadbeat parents) and food stamps, even though we had a lot of advantages over other people who likely needed those things even more than we did. And sure, those jobs will disappear but in fact the turnover in a lot of these programs is very high, it's very tough to do this type of work for very long, few people spend an entire life working for a social service program, and those who do are often committing fraud - not to say there aren't certainly _some_ who do who work very hard and are honest.

thesteamboat 12y ago

Apologies from distracting from an otherwise well-written comment, but this caught my eye: > Second, the government being the largest employer (second largest I believe if we elude the military.) I can imagine this making sense if we exclude the military, but I certainly hope we're not currently living in some dystopia where it is necessary for upperwardly mobile citizens, such as ourselves, to hide from our government's armed forces.