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Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. At least federal taxes, but it would be ni

by MCRed 11y ago

Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. At least federal taxes, but it would be nice if there was a moratorium or movement to do it for state taxes as well. For someone making $50k a year, right now they are paying around $7.5k in federal taxes. That right there is close to the $12k the Basic Income would provide. And this would be a lot easier and simple bill and thus hopefully less contentious-- just make the minimum exemption $50k. Could even be one line maybe. I think this would be much more effective.... and I don't think that the basic income will replace all the other bureaucracy etc. For instance, the welfare programs primary job is to hand out money, and it costs them $75 in administrative overhead to hand out $25! Do you think a new federal bureaucracy is going to be more efficient? IT might be a bit in the early years, but of course these things grow as people need to build fiefdoms for themselves etc. etc. And can you imagine the howls from the federal employees unions if you try and get rid of the Welfare and other federal programs to be replaced with Basic income? If you don't get rid of them then basic income is just going on top of them. And if you don't eliminate taxes for poor people, then they're going to end up paying higher taxes too to pay for basic income. That's the absurd thing right now-- people working part time and getting welfare are still paying taxes. Since welfare loses %75 of those taxes, it would be much more efficient to just let them keep the money in the first place! Eliminate taxes on everyone making $50k or less and you have a program I can get behind. Give that 5 years and see if we still need to think about Basic Income.

jpindar 11y ago
You can't buy food with a piece of paper saying how much you didn't have to pay in taxes.
- MCRed 11y ago
  OMG, at this ant the other responses. Because you didn't have to pay it in taxes, you can buy food with the pieces of paper you... didn't pay in taxes! Ok, I'm out. I think you guys don't care about the poor at all, you reject economics out of hand and are just pursuing an ideology. Good luck with that.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its often helpful to start from where we are, and change things a little. That is more comfortable notion, if nothing else. But when the system is patently not helping those it needs to help, perhaps a new system is desirable. Most government programs were new systems once. Replacing them should not be any more disruptive than inventing them in the first place. Basic Income is superior to all the others, in my opinion, because it is trivial to see that it will help the most desperate, and it can be administrated trivially (send everybody a check). There's something wonderfully egalitarian about that. The patronizing approach hasn't worked so well; lets try trusting people with their own lives this time.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. If you are referring to federal income taxes, specifically, that's actually an increase for many of those people. (Because of refundable credits, particularly EITC.) > For someone making $50k a year, right now they are paying around $7.5k in federal taxes. Please show your work here. > For instance, the welfare programs primary job is to hand out money, and it costs them $75 in administrative overhead to hand out $25! Do you think a new federal bureaucracy is going to be more efficient? No, the primary function of welfare administration is to prevent the wrong people from getting money, not handing out money. Handing out money is easy, doing the work to apply the conditional criteria which determine who is not entitled to money, and who, of those entitled to money, is entitled to less than the maximum benefit and how much less is the costly part. Which is exactly the function that UBI eliminates. (You could do UBI through the tax system as a universal, refundable credit; except for the first year, having it be trailing this way is the same, in effect, as providing it up front.) > And if you don't eliminate taxes for poor people, then they're going to end up paying higher taxes too to pay for basic income. Not necessarily. You can raise taxes on one subset of the income spectrum without either raising or eliminating it elsewhere (for instance, you could raise the rate at the top tax bracket, add another bracket on top of that at a still higher rate, and eliminate the favorable tax treatment of capital gains versus other income, without raising taxes on the poor.)

by MCRed 11y ago

jpindar 11y ago

You can't buy food with a piece of paper saying how much you didn't have to pay in taxes.

MCRed 11y ago
OMG, at this ant the other responses. Because you didn't have to pay it in taxes, you can buy food with the pieces of paper you... didn't pay in taxes! Ok, I'm out. I think you guys don't care about the poor at all, you reject economics out of hand and are just pursuing an ideology. Good luck with that.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Its often helpful to start from where we are, and change things a little. That is more comfortable notion, if nothing else. But when the system is patently not helping those it needs to help, perhaps a new system is desirable. Most government programs were new systems once. Replacing them should not be any more disruptive than inventing them in the first place. Basic Income is superior to all the others, in my opinion, because it is trivial to see that it will help the most desperate, and it can be administrated trivially (send everybody a check). There's something wonderfully egalitarian about that. The patronizing approach hasn't worked so well; lets try trusting people with their own lives this time.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Why don't we just cut taxes for everyone who makes less than $50k a year? Cut them to zero for all of those people. If you are referring to federal income taxes, specifically, that's actually an increase for many of those people. (Because of refundable credits, particularly EITC.) > For someone making $50k a year, right now they are paying around $7.5k in federal taxes. Please show your work here. > For instance, the welfare programs primary job is to hand out money, and it costs them $75 in administrative overhead to hand out $25! Do you think a new federal bureaucracy is going to be more efficient? No, the primary function of welfare administration is to prevent the wrong people from getting money, not handing out money. Handing out money is easy, doing the work to apply the conditional criteria which determine who is not entitled to money, and who, of those entitled to money, is entitled to less than the maximum benefit and how much less is the costly part. Which is exactly the function that UBI eliminates. (You could do UBI through the tax system as a universal, refundable credit; except for the first year, having it be trailing this way is the same, in effect, as providing it up front.) > And if you don't eliminate taxes for poor people, then they're going to end up paying higher taxes too to pay for basic income. Not necessarily. You can raise taxes on one subset of the income spectrum without either raising or eliminating it elsewhere (for instance, you could raise the rate at the top tax bracket, add another bracket on top of that at a still higher rate, and eliminate the favorable tax treatment of capital gains versus other income, without raising taxes on the poor.)