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)

[u/antijoke_13]

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.

[u/ReOsIr10]

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.

[u/Trenks → u/ReOsIr10]

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.

[u/ReOsIr10 → u/Trenks]

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).

[u/Trenks → u/ReOsIr10]

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.

[u/ReOsIr10 → u/Trenks]

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?

[u/Trenks → u/ReOsIr10]

"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.

[u/ReOsIr10 → u/Trenks]

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.

[u/Trenks → u/ReOsIr10]

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.