UBIs are coming!
The luxury communist boomers are already living this UBI life -- one of the main reasons why they must be fucked, scalped, or forcibly removed. Fuck 'em all.
Here's the WSJ Editorial Board outlining the path to some sort of broader UBI: weaaaalth transfer for eeeeeverybody! wroom-wroom says treasury market, comfortably supported by the money printer.
If Democrats retake Congress next year they promise to feud with President Trump and investigate his every move. But it’s also possible that Democrats lure the President into more spending and bad policy, as it did in the last two years of his first term. Pay attention to a recent bipartisan bill to expand the child tax credit.
The in-the-weeds details is about a minimum income threshold to qualify for the tax credit of $2,500 a year. Con case is that the neediest (without even that) are thus squeezed out. Pro case is that it maintains some connection to the labor market.
Abolishing it one step closer to a UBI
Programs that attempt to understand the household’s circumstances and require a certain number of hours of work for the able-bodied are far better for children than checks. It’s true the credit defies tax fairness by reducing liability for too many affluent parents. But that’s an argument against offering it to married couples who earn $400,000, not for eliminating the bias for work.
Both parties are descending into naked bidding on income transfers. A big risk is that the U.S. lurches into a universal basic income, even as the evidence on early experiments suggests they reduce work and upward mobility.
I mean, yes: what did you think democracy be but an intricate, competitive bidding for who to scalp and whom to reward?
"That universal basic income won’t arrive in one headline bill. It will come from dozens of incremental additions to the welfare state, each presented as essential for lowering costs for working parents or promoting traditional lifestyles."
archive:
I’ve generally thought that we are going to essentially have a de facto UBI from the enormous hodgepodge of transfer programs first.
Then, in the name of fairness/transparency/simplicity, they’ll all get collapsed into a formal UBI (upon which new programs will be added).
If you collapse all the social programs into formal UBI, someone will inevitably squander their UBI, end up homeless on the streets, and then voters gonna vote for food, health, and housing programs for them.
Biggest reason I don't support UBI, even as an alternative to existing social programs.
Exactly why I expect a cyclic dynamic.
At some point, all the inefficiencies and distortions and fraud of the alphabet soup programs will make UBI attractive. Then, the specific reasons for all those specific programs will reassert themselves.
Isn’t it already here? Interest on the debt and social security?