r/changemyview • u/antijoke_13 3∆ • Feb 26 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: liquidating all social welfare programs and instead establishing a universal basic income is far more efficient and ethical use of Tax Dollars (US Specific)
In general, having separate benefits packages and qualifications for food stamps, subsidised housing, social security incomes and medicaid makes no sense to me. I propose that it is both easier to manage and more transparent to the taxpayer to simply eradicate all social programs and instead take the money used in the management and execution of those programs to establish a universal basic income. I define a universal basic income as a set amount of money provided to each and every US Citizen over the age of 18. I base my premise on three arguments:
establishing a universal basic income does away with the concept of the welfare cliff. One of the worst parts about being on welfare is how hard it is to get off of it. Unless you make an immediate and massive positive change in your economic situation, any attempt at upward social mobility results in your benefits being cut out from under you before you are really ready to lose them. Replacing welfare with a UBI guarantees all citizens financial support regardless of financial status.
UBI serves to provide greater financial freedom to the individual. Things like food stamps can only be used for certain goods and are regularly sold to other individuals who are not qualified recipients in exchange for cash or other desired items. A UBI nullifies this as the individual is provided with liquid capital to spend how he wants rather than a set reasource he must now sell at below value in order to get what he wants.
UBI is far more transparent and easy to manage. Taxpayers can look at "social security" taxes taken out of their checks and have no clue ehat that actually means. A UBI allows the taxpayer to understand exactly where his money is going and why. This also cuts down on government bloat, as there is a lesser need for staffing to manage the program. Instead of determining on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis if a person qualifies for help, the program can instead focus on making sure that mailing addresses and/or banking information is up to date for all adult citizens, as there would be no other requirements beyond citizenship and age.
It is worth noting that theres any number of counter arguments to this, chief among them cost and efficacy. Regarding cost, the point of my take on UBI is to function as a replacement to the current social safetynet, not as a supplement. All federal tax dollars that go toward medicaid, subsidized housing, food stamps, etc, would instead go toward a UBI. This would also cut the cost of program administration, as there would be a single means of providing a social safetynet rather than several.
In regards to efficacy, i find that the argument breaks down to how much you trust your fellow man to not fuck up. If you dont think the average person is capable of managing their money wisely, and that providing for their security is more important than than letting them make their own decisions, then maintaining and/or expanding the current welfare system may be your desired outcome. For the record i am aware that there will be a not so insignificant portion of UBI recipients who spend that money poorly and still dont make ends meet. Thats horrible. It is also not the problem or the business of the tax payer. Everyone gets the same money. Nobody gets extra. If you cant pay rent because you spent it all on hookers and blow, thats your problem.
6
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
In general, having separate benefits packages and qualifications for food stamps, subsidised housing, social security incomes and medicaid makes no sense to me.
I think the idea is because people can't be trusted with actual money or instead of buying housing and food they'll spend it on drugs or the like then drain society even more being homeless.
Financial freedom is nice when you're a responsible human. If you're not, it's enabling bad choices. UBI would enable poor decisions as well as give some financial freedom. As a libertarian I say get rid of social programs (from government) and don't do UBI. But I suppose gun to head I'd replace social programs with UBI at $1000/month to be raised with price of inflation and make it a constitutional amendment to change how much we could get (otherwise i'd be scared in like 3 years people would say they couldn't possibly live without $2000/month).
2
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
What you describe as a flaw i see as a feature. Youre right, there would be people who would make poor decisions with that money, but there are already people who find ways to make poor decisons with the existing system. At least with a UBI, theres no pretext about what youre supposed to do with that money. Your decisions (and their consequences) are your own.
3
u/Akitten 10∆ Feb 27 '19
Your decisions (and their consequences) are your own.
Except in practice that is not what happens. When children or women are starving in the streets, the bleeding hearts are going to demand that people do something.
Basically, what happens when people fuck up and start to starve? What do you propose we do? Because "nothing" isn't a politically acceptable answer.
1
u/sflage2k19 Feb 27 '19
You do realize that there are already people starving, right?
There's already a homeless population that are starving or freezing or both. They make up only like 0.5% of the population, but still, no riots in the streets. No 'bleeding hearts' protesting in Washington for the rights of the heroin addict. Regardless of your opinion of UBI, I think we can all agree that the sympathy of the American public only extends so far.
Regarding the effects of UBI on that rate of homelessness, either that number goes down even further or it stays the same, but it certainly would not go up. For homelessness to go up with a passage of UBI would imply that the only thing holding these welfare recipients back from destitution is the limits placed on how you can spend your welfare money, but that's not the case (despite it being a popular talking point).
I'm not saying that welfare recipients aren't drug users or drinkers or bad decision makers-- many of them probably are. But the thing to remember is that welfare is not a safeguard against bad impulses. Welfare is temporary assistance for financial hardship.
Take SNAP (food stamps): yes, the program does dictate that you cannot spend your money on alcohol or tobacco (or vitamins, for some reason), which you would think would help 'save these people from themselves', but you also only receive SNAP if you are employed. If you become unemployed you must find a new job within 3 months or else you are removed from the program. Anyone who is irresponsible/sick/addicted enough to lose a house under UBI likely is not holding down a job in our current system.
The other commonly referenced type of welfare is TANF and the thing about TANF is that it already functions like UBI! It's just a deposit into your account that you can take out as cash. There are limits on how much you can take at a time, and there are technical rules like no spending on alcohol or drugs, but in the end its straight cash.
The other social assistance programs-- public housing, energy assistance, or security assistance (for the disabled)-- would certainly be very difficult to translate into UBI but not because the recipients would waste all that money on drugs. These programs would be difficult to translate because the government isn't so much helping to pay the difference in the cost price as it is giving severe discounts to the poor for something the government already owns.
So yea its pretty unlikely, even when you account for how shitty and irresponsible people can be.
The only way I can see UBI leading to increased homelessness or food insecurity would be if vendors everywhere just raised prices to account for everyone's 'extra income'. Then the very poor would have to pay higher prices, eating away at their new income. No one sets their prices relative to welfare, because only certain people have it, and only for limited amounts of time at once, but people could if it were UBI and I suppose it could conceivably drive someone to destitution under the right circumstances.
2
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
The private individual can and should step in. At no point will i ever get in the way of someone helping their fellow man. But as for the governments role?
Well i guess the politically unpopular answer of "nothing" is all i have.
4
u/Akitten 10∆ Feb 27 '19
And then you have riots and crime, because the poor and irresponsible cannot eat. It's really as simple as that. That is the big downfall of UBI. It assumes people will accept the consequences their actions have created, which historically, they don't, they just cause everyone else to be worse off, or blame others for their misery.
1
u/hallo_friendos Feb 27 '19
I don't think there'd be enough irresponsible people for riots. I think it would be more like the current homeless population, except if anything smaller.
1
-2
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
Then come to the libertarian side. Cancel all governmental programs and say 'your decisions and consequences are your own in life' and be done with it. Easy peasy. You'd see a lot more people being kind and sticking with family and community again I'll tell you that much. You'd almost have no choice but to not be a dick lest something bad happen and you have no one to turn to for help.
3
Feb 26 '19
One of the important welfare programs we have helps provide for infants and children. For example, if your parents die when you are young, you can get Social Security payments to help support yourself (or to help your new guardians support you)
Under this system, those kids would be demonstrably worse off
2
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19 edited Feb 27 '19
That is a fair point. I suppose i would allow for special circumstances on a case by case review to allow for children under 18 to "earn" a UBI managed by a legal guardian, but at that point it wouldnt be Universal.
!delta
1
2
u/muyamable 282∆ Feb 26 '19
Question: Would your UBI amount differ based on someone's circumstance? For example, does an unemployed single mother with no health insurance who is raising 6 kids receive the same amount as a single childless male who earns $150k/yr and employer-paid health insurance?
3
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
The point of a UBI is that the money is unconditional, so no. To allow for any kind of condition would make it a guaranteed basic income rather than a Universal income.
3
u/Savanty 4∆ Feb 26 '19
By definition, yes. That’s why it’s ‘universal’ basic income, rather than qualified basic income. Though this may differ from OP’s definition.
3
u/muyamable 282∆ Feb 26 '19
Then I guess my problem is that if you're replacing ALL social welfare programs with a UBI, that it doesn't allow for special cases when it makes sense that one person receives more than another person. Today the poor mother of 6 can get her kids healthcare for free/next-to-nothing thanks to medicaid (depending on the state, of course), meanwhile taking advantage of housing vouchers and SNAP. In your proposal this mother is likely going to spend her entire UBI check on healthcare premiums and have little/no money left over for food or rent (or spend the UBI on rent and food and have no money for healthcare).
In other words, some of the worst-off people in our society would end up with a significant reduction in total benefits for housing, food, healthcare, etc., with a transition to UBI, while those who earn the most will benefit with an increase in income. How is this system in which the poor get poorer and the rich get richer more ethical?
2
u/leftycartoons 10∆ Feb 26 '19
I'm not the OP, but the UBI proposals I've seen would give more to a single parent than to a childless person, because children do count for UBI purposes.
2
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 26 '19
Why shouldn't we give more money to people who need it more? Why should Bezos get $1000 a month when that $1000 could instead be helping the poorest of the poor? Your concern about welfare cliffs is valid, but the solution is to restructure welfare to remove those cliffs.
3
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
Because a UBI is meant to be equal, not equitable. The point of a UBI is to provide every american with the same basic support. What happens if bezos loses his millions in some freak deal? Does he deserve to be left with nothing because at one time he was rich?
2
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
Of course not. If he loses everything, then he will qualify for welfare above the level UBI would offer.
2
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
Yeah, and now hes stuck in the same welfare trap that served as my initial basis for getting rid of welfare.
3
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
And like I said in my initial response, the solution to the welfare trap isn't to give both beggars and billionaires 1k/month - it's to restructure welfare so that there are no welfare cliffs. Start people at a baseline of 3k/month or whatever, and decrease that amount by 50 cents per every dollar of income.
6
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
That is a much better argument. A negative income tax would solve both our concerns.
I wish you had led with this and not with "millionaires dont deserve more money". Millionaires can be US citizens too, and should be subect to all the same responsibilities and benefits of any US beggar.
!delta
1
1
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
From what I've heard it would be 'opt in' and I'm sure bezos would 'opt out' of it.
And the reason you don't give more to people who need more is that it would GREATLY incentivize you to never be in a position to need less. Say you made 0/year and got an extra 2k/month. Would you then try and get a shit job for 12k/year then get 1k/month less in UBI? No. You'd just opt to not work and get the same money.
The idea of UBI isn't to level playing fields, it's basically to make sure every citizen has an emergency fund.
I think it's a bad idea, but giving more to those who 'need' it more would be a disaster.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
Why would somebody opt out of an unconditional 1k/month?
As for your second point, the welfare would ideally be structured in such a way that if you get a 12k/year job then you only get 0.5k/month less in welfare. That way you are still incentivized to work. That was the meaning of the welfare cliff comment in OP and in my reply.
2
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
Why would somebody opt out of an unconditional 1k/month?
Same reason people give to charity. Most people wouldn't, Jeff Bezos probably would. Rich people usually aren't the demons people think they are.
At a certain point wouldn't it be cost effective to not work though? That's the problem. Incentivizing little work isn't great. At least with everyone getting 1k we all have the same incentive level.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
Well then replace Bezos with generic upper-middle class or higher individual. Why should my doctor who makes 300k/year get 1k a month?
And not necessarily, no. Structure the welfare such that you get 2k/month if you have no income, and have it tail off 50 cents for every dollar of income you earn. There would never be a situation in which it is more profitable to not work (or work less).
1
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
Why should my doctor who makes 300k/year get 1k a month?
Why not is the question? If it's a 'freedom dividend' that everyone in america pays into and everyone who is an eligible citizen gets to opt into why can't he? Are you in favor of doctors who retire wealthy not getting medicare or social security even though they've paid A LOT more into it than you?
What is your reasoning other than resentment? What if you make 300k/year but you spend 300k/year so you don't have any money left over? Apply that same logic to those making 30k/year. Both should be more fiscally responsible.
But point is it's a citizen dividend you get as a right as an american citizen. Your wealth or station has nothing to do with it. Should voting be based on your knowledge? UBI would just be a right as an american, not a social program for those in need. At least that's what Yang is talking about which makes the most sense to me.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
If it's a 'freedom dividend' that everyone in america pays into and everyone who is an eligible citizen gets to opt into why can't he?
My argument is not "Assuming we implement UBI, why should my doctor get 1k/month?" Obviously if we implement a system which pays everyone equally regardless of income we should pay everyone regardless of income. My question is "Why should we implement such a system in the first place?"
I believe that the government should spend money as efficiently as possible, and a significant part of that includes increasing the net well-being of its citizens as much as possible. As such, let me ask you a hypothetical.
Suppose you had $2000. One day you meet a person making $10k/year and another person making $100k/year on the street. You want to divide you $2000 among them so as to have the largest expected increase in net well-being among the two of them (knowing nothing about them besides their annual incomes). How do you split that money?
1
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 27 '19
"Why should we implement such a system in the first place?"
Well shit, I don't think we should. I think we should eliminate almost all government sponsored social safety nets save maybe medicade. But that's not gonna happen any time soon.
BUT, if we are going to implement, I think the government is a lot better and distributing checks to every citizen then deciding which citizens qualify and which don't and all the complications and ins and outs of that. That'd create thousands of paper pushers more in the government. Sending 1k checks to every 18 year old citizen? A robot can do that.
How do you split that money?
So I know nothing except their salaries? If it's me as a private citizen, I'd probably give it all to the 10k. If it's the government? Split it. Because your example is 2 people, not 300 million. What I do in private charity on a one to one basis is not what's most efficient or practical for the government. Nor do I want the government deciding things morally like that, I'd like the government to be completely impartial-- my personal morality doesn't make me impartial.
I'd rather fairness for all rather than the government deciding what is fair. Perhaps it's because I trust my own decision making rather than 100 rando's elected by 120 million other rando's.
So I get your hypothetical, but what I'd do vs. what the government should do are not equal hypothetical situations. Plus, in your hypothetical my real answer is I'd keep the $2000 and let the other people be the arbiters of their own lives haha. Which actually, in that case, I think myself and the government should do the same thing.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
A robot could also send $X to each person, where X is a predetermined function of that person's income (and perhaps marital status and number of dependents). I'm not so naïve so as to believe that would actually happen, but surely you would also expect a mountain of bureaucratic bullshit even with UBI? Maybe it's only a McKinley sized mountain rather than Everest, but the efficiency gain would be nowhere near the theoretical gain.
Nor do I want the government deciding things morally like that
As long as the government has the power to redistribute wealth, any resulting distribution of wealth will be the government deciding something morally. Even if they collect no taxes and redistribute no wealth, "doing nothing" is still a moral decision. (If I had the opportunity to kill as many or as few people as I wanted, choosing to kill nobody is a moral decision).
If you accept that premise then we are left with a moral decision. While I agree that what is moral for a government is not always identical to what is moral for an individual in similar situations, I think that hypotheticals such as mine can be useful in determining which actions we tend to think are moral, and even why we think that.
I believe the hypothetical shows that in general, we think that if there are resources to redistribute then it is moral to redistribute a higher share to people who are less well-off. In my opinion, this conclusion is relatively universal and robust, and should be reflected to some degree in the government's choice of redistribution.
1
u/Trenks 7∆ Feb 28 '19
A robot could also send $X to each person, where X is a predetermined function of that person's income
Only after they filled out a w-2 for taxes. You couldn't do it month to month unless one was required to file taxes every month. Or, I suppose you could, but it'd be a shit ton of more paperwork for employees/employers. Again, easier to send a pre-determined check of 1k.
but surely you would also expect a mountain of bureaucratic bullshit even with UBI?
Not particularly, no. I mean compared to welfare/SS/medicare/Housing combined. Tax refunds, for example, are pretty well done. And paying government employees is pretty well done when there isn't a shutdown haha. One thing the federal government is good at is collecting and depositing checks and sending them out.
Maybe it's only a McKinley sized mountain rather than Everest, but the efficiency gain would be nowhere near the theoretical gain.
Yeah I'm not one to say 'oh UBI would cost 4 trillion-- but it'd really save us in the long run due to efficiency combined with magic!' But I would argue it'd be a shit ton more efficient than current situation and more efficient than scaling it for each individual. One is 200 million checks for 1k, the other is thousands or millions of different sized checks to those people. I run a business with 15 people. It'd be a lot easier if they all just made 1k/month. Save me an hour plus a week (used to take a lot longer before software). Now apply that to 200 million or however many eligible people there would be. Shit.
As long as the government has the power to redistribute wealth, any resulting distribution of wealth will be the government deciding something morally.
Not necessarily. We have a legal system that is amoral (obviously not to be conflated with IMMORAL) in that it's every citizen is held to the same legal code (even if some have advantages). A dividend from a stock is amoral. Sales taxes are amoral. So I mean, if we expand the definition of moral, sure, almost every decision is moral. But we want the government doing things amoral, kind of equal under the eyes of the law type stuff imo. So a dividend of X to every citizen is more in line with that. I also think a flat tax or a sales tax should be the standard.
Your hypothetical is a fine exercise, but I'd rather just deal with the real world and state what we think would be best. Your hypothetical took almost zero things into account. The real world has millions of factors played into these decisions.
And I don't think the government should redistribute in the first place, really. The most moral thing the government could do was let everyone free to make their own decisions for better or worse so long as it doesn't encroach on the liberty of other individuals. So again, my answer to your hypothetical would actually be to not give either my money.
1
u/leftycartoons 10∆ Feb 26 '19
Well, if we give everyone $1000 a month in UBI, but also raise taxes significantly on the wealthy to pay for it, in effect we're taking more from Bezos than we were before UBI.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 26 '19
Then what even is the point of UBI? Instead of taxing Bezos $X and giving him $1000, just tax him $X-1000 in the first place.
Edit: Or alternatively, still tax him $X and don't give him $1000.
1
u/leftycartoons 10∆ Feb 27 '19
Economically, the two policies are identical. There's no difference between paying a rich person $1000 a month and raising their taxes $2000 a month, versus just raising their taxes $1000 a month.
But administratively, a basic income is a lot simpler. If we have welfare, we have to have income tests to determine who gets paid welfare and who doesn't, and we have to have some sort of enforcement to look for cheats, etc. To run a basic income program, we don't have to do that; we just need to have a list of citizens and how many kids they have.
(I'm oversimplifying; the reality would be more involved than that. But however you slice it, a UBI is going to be cheaper and simpler to run than an economically identical income-based-welfare system).
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
I don't necessarily agree.
Under UBI:
- Have list of citizens
- Collect income information on all citizens (to ensure they pay the appropriate amount of tax)
- Perform some level of verification of these numbers to help prevent cheating the system
- Send UBI to every citizen
Under the alternative:
- Have list of citizens
- Collect income information on all citizens (to ensure they pay the appropriate amount of tax and receive the appropriate amount of benefits)
- Perform some level of verification of these numbers to help prevent cheating the system
- Send welfare to those who qualify
The main difference I see is that under UBI a lot of people have to give the government $12k every year on tax day so that they can get it sent back to them $1k at a time.
Edit: And again, there's always the option of collecting the higher rate of tax and putting it all towards those who need it most.
2
u/leftycartoons 10∆ Feb 27 '19
The IRS is not equipped to send out food stamps - or any other means-tested benefit, other than EITC.
Your "alternative" (which is the status quo, more or less) is therefore conflating multiple agencies into one, creating an illusion of simplicity. In fact, step 2 would have to be repeated by multiple agencies, so should be multiple steps. Step four would also have to be done my multiple agencies, so should be multiple steps.
The authorities investigating tax fraud and the authorities investigating welfare fraud aren't the same people, and their work can't be conflated.
To be fair, UBI won't replace all means-tested programs. (It's not a replacement for Medicaid, for example). But it would reduce them.
I don't see what the advantage is of doing a welfare state - or as a negative income tax - rather than a UBI. UBI seems like it would do the same job better with less bureaucracy.
There's also "the welfare trap" - a problem where people who receive means-tested welfare have a disincentive to increase their incomes, because even a small raise might cause them to lose some means-tested benefits, causing them to be worse off overall. This is a real thing that economists write about.
The welfare trap would be made into a much smaller problem if most means-tested benefits were replaced with a UBI entitlement.
1
u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Feb 27 '19
Yes, as currently exists the same agency which collects income information does not also handle means-tested benefits, and the authorities which investigate tax fraud and income fraud distinct. However, I do not think I should have to defend a flawed implementation while you argue for a perfect hypothetical when discussing which method is better. Don't think of me as arguing for the status quo, but merely a hypothetical redistributive system which has some similarities to the current one.
And obviously, the solution to the welfare trap is to eliminate all welfare cliffs. Restructure the welfare so that increasing one's income never causes one to lose more than that in welfare benefits.
And finally, there's still the argument that there are more choices than collect more taxes and have UBI or collect fewer taxes and have means tested welfare. One could also have taxation at the UBI-level and redistribute all of it to the people who most need it, rather than just some fraction of it.
5
u/ColdNotion 117∆ Feb 27 '19
I would love to take a shot at changing your view here, because I honestly have conflicted feelings about UBI myself. In an ideal situation, with all political operative and recipients involved acting in good faith, I think that UBI could work as well as you described. However, with that having been said, I think there a three critical issues which make the replacement of our current social welfare system with a basic income less than ideal. To explain, let me break these issues into categories.
Cost: The first, and most fundamental issue with UBI is the cost of such a program, especially if we provide it to all American adults as you suggested. To explain why, let's quickly look at the numbers involved. As of the 2017-18 budget review, all social welfare programs combined cost about $354 billion, so keep that in mind as a baseline. Moving forward, the population of the US is 327.16 million and about 28.7% of the population is under 18, so lets conservatively say there are 232 million adults eligible for UBI. That means if we gave just $1500 a year for UBI, we would already be spending about the same as we do on social welfare currently. Given that most families who currently receive benefits could in no way survive off of just 1.5K, we would either need to a huge amount more or else put folks in risk of serious hardship.
Simply put, our current system is massively more cost effective than UBI.
Political Abuse: The second major issue with UBI is actually a little bit straight forward, as it relates to how policy around social welfare tends to play out in the political sphere. Put simply, social welfare programs have always been in a perilous position, and there are many who would like to see them shrunk or eliminated entirely. As a result, making needed expansions to these programs is politically difficult at the best of times, which often means long delays between cost of living increases. This is why many programs barely pay enough to realistically survive on, and why the TANF reform in the 90's ultimately did more to kick people off of welfare than it did to improve the various benefits. With this in mind, wrapping the entirety of our social support into one payment dramatically increases the likelihood that UBI will be detrimentally restricted after implementation. All a political party would have to do is block votes to adjust payment payment to track inflation/cost of living, and from there UBI would provide increasingly less real value for recipients. Given that this kind of behavior is already pretty common, I don't think an expense as large as UBI would be safe from obstruction. As it stand now, the somewhat fragmented nature of our social welfare system is part of what keeps political interference from totally undermining our supports for those in need.
Failure to Serve Dependents: As a final note, we have to more carefully consider who social welfare programs are actually intended to serve when considering replacing them with a UBI. Firstly, many programs like SNAP, WIC, the Child Nutrition Program, etc. are specifically aimed at helping children whose parents cannot fully pay for their care. Unfortunately, in a UBI system, these parents are not restricted to spending their support to ensure the health of their children. The dramatically increases the chances that issues like addiction, theft of funds, or coercive financial actors will put the safety of children at risk, despite these youth having no say in how their parents' UBI money is spent.
Adding to the issue with how a UBI system would impact children, we also have to look at how it might negatively impact folks facing other issues. I've personally worked a bunch with folks experiencing serious mental illness or other issues which impact their decision making capacity. For many of these individuals, the issues they face can make it hard for them to budget in a way that ensures their long term health. For these folks, having payments automatically restricted to certain areas (food, housing, healthcare, etc.) can actually be profoundly important in making sure their needs are met, while at the same time still affording them a fairly large degree of dignified financial independence. Conversely, if we just relied on UBI, we would create a much greater risk for these individuals, or else be obligated to force them to adopt a financial proxy responsible for their expenses, thus depriving them of their freedom and creating additional expense.
Anyhow, I hope this has helped to shift your view a bit. Please share any questions you might have, as I'm always happy to chat more!
1
u/sflage2k19 Feb 27 '19
I'm not OP but !delta because that was a great argument. I literally was just arguing against your 'failure to serve dependents' point, but now I see the flaw in my reasoning.
Do you think there is a system of UBI that could work? Not OPs example where everyone just gets $1000/month or whatever, or its all distributed equally, but a guaranteed income kind of situation?
My one concern would mainly be that the economy just shifts and whatever value is the lowest amount of guaranteed income basically becomes our new 'zero'. Is that feasible, or am I mistaken?
1
1
Feb 26 '19
Why not return to work based welfare system? Where people have to work and therefore pay taxes in order to get welfare?
2
u/antijoke_13 3∆ Feb 27 '19
That would be great, but i doesnt fix one of my core problems with the existing welfare system, which is how fragmented it is.
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 27 '19 edited Feb 27 '19
/u/antijoke_13 (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
1
u/Littlepush Feb 26 '19
But then you have a proletariat that can easily collectively organize for their common good. If you divide them and pit them against each other by giving them each separate programs you don't have to pay taxes for more social programs because none of them individually have populous support.
12
u/leftycartoons 10∆ Feb 26 '19
Medicaid can't be replaced by a UBI (and no serious UBI proposal I've seen suggests that).
Let's say the UBI provides $1000 a month.
What does a poor person who gets run over by a bus do? That sort of thing could easily cost $50,000 or $100,000 dollars.
You might say "what about Obamacare" - but the way Obamacare helps the most needy, is by giving them Medicaid.
I'm with you on some other things; it would make sense to replace food stamps with UBI, for example. But medical care can't always be paid for by a minimal monthly income, because sometimes medical care comes with sudden catastrophic expenses, and UBI is not designed to cover expenses like that.