[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Please go back and reread the thread. I never called for eliminating government-run health care; I called for slimming it down to reduce costs, and introducing modest user fees.

Modest user fees? So there would be costs associated with healthcare? That eats into the $1667 a month should someone get sick, or god forbid, they have a catastrophic health emergency. Terrible idea, PERIOD. You don't have to look any further than the United States for proof.

Also I said 20k/year UBI (roughly $1667/month).

Great. You're still 28K short of the living wage for the cheapest state in the US (Mississippi - $48K a year). So you're killing all of the programs that help poor people to get food, housing, healthcare, education, and so on, but hey, you're giving them $20K to live on. How are people going to make up the difference?

Eliminating means testing will remove a lot of bureaucratic costs.

A means test is one very small part of the process in supporting a program of this size. The savings are negligible.

Can I ask a simple question. What do you do for a living? What experience do you have to think you understand how government works in this regard?

Wrong.

Actually, that's 100% right. The system is set up to take all the traffic will bear. If you give the market and inch, they'll take a mile. Corporations are also not going to sit by and let you tax them to what they consider ridiculous levels. They are not going to volunteer to give up the money you are going to demand from them to pay for UBI. For all of these things to happen the system will have to completely collapse and a new set of rules, norms, expectations, and regulations implemented. As it currently is, the larget corporations in the United States don't pay a damn cent of tax (most get rebates) and that is the way the system is set up. It would take a global collapse of the market economies to see a change like this. You try and implement this stuff, prices will skyrocket to maintain bottom lines and investor expectations. This is the reality of the market-based economy we live in.

Perhaps.

Again, yes. There would have to be a complete destruction of our systems of government. The constitution would have to be made null and void. A new system of government would have to be established because the one in place right now would never support the idea of a UBI nor have the mechanisms to make it work. Have you never heard the term "no taxation without representation?" It was central to this document called the Declaration of Independence and led to the revolutionary war. The people down here are pretty fanatical about taxes and what is considered tyranny. This would be considered the greatest over-reach since the Stamp Act of 1765.

Some shift, but not the catastrophic scenario you seem to be trying to paint.

Some shift? Sure. I guess if eating and having a roof over their head is "some shift." When you're talking about eliminating the very programs people depend upon to meet their basic human needs, and then giving them 41% of what they need to live on, and then fail to acknowledge the systemic problems you're going to create with some of your other ideas to fund this, you're forcing people that already have limited options to have even fewer.

That's one of the main purposes of UBI, to make sure that no one gets born into crushing poverty.

Except that is exactly what this would do. You're killing off the vast majority of social programs that the poor rely upon, and then giving them a pittance to live on. Again, the living wage in the poorest state in the union is $48,000 a year, and you're suggesting that $20,000 will cut it. You have no clue what you're talking about.

Here's the problem with your plan. You've dreamed it up with only your perspective in mind. You're a young white kid who likely has some education behind him and had a leg up from mom and dad. You have likely never been exposed to poverty or systemic racism that makes mobility an issue for so many. You get to have a very idealistic perspective on this because you've never had to face the challenges that so many face. It is easy to say that $20K is a great start, because you have the prospects to get a good paying job and will always have the system working in your favor. You need to walk a mile in their shoes and understand the world they live in.

Mississippi



Missouri



Michigan



Maryland



Do you think $20K is going to change the plight of anyone in these locations? This is a systemic problem. UBI does not and never will impact this. Where do these people go to get services once the government pulls up stakes and tells them they are on their own? UBI does not address poverty in any shape or fashion. The only thing that changes poverty is to help people to achieve the mobility to permanently get out it.