I don’t know how relevant this is now, but here’s a link to another post where I expressed my thoughts on what kind of pitfalls you might most likely face – https://lemmy.world/post/36867409
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let’s say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it’s a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
It doesn’t matter if it’s a tax credit or your writing checks, losing $ 4 trillion in revenue from tax cuts is equal to spending $ 4 trillion on UBI checks on the balance sheet.
So a UBI of $12k/year would effectively eliminate federal tax revenue, that means there is no money for any other social programs. You aren’t just cutting food stamps, you’re cutting everything and telling people they have to make do on $1,000 a month. Now, the government can not afford to pay the $1 trillion for Medicare alone, much less a universal Healthcare system. If that’s not bad enough the elderly who on average are getting $2k/month for social security alone now have to make do on only $1k/month of UBI along with paying huge insurance premiums due to there age. Same could be said of disabled people who are also currently receiving on average $1.5k/month from social security and have there insurance covered by Medicaid. If you don’t increase taxes or the deficit massively to keep those programs you’re condemning the most vulnerable people to destitutuon.
People can’t live off $1k/month without any other assistance, that’s why social security is higher then that and it’s supplemented with Medicare. That’s today, if UBI goes in and devalues that $1k then it’ll be impossible to live off of alone and the benefit you keep touting of being able to tell your boss to fuck off and quit safely goes away. Sure if I quit I might be able to afford eating rice and beans in a shoebox apartment, but I definitely can’t afford health insurance or a car (as that’s the only way to get around because public transit has been gutted) or anything else that would make my life worth living. I can’t even go on a walk in the park because they were all privatized and sold to a members only country club.
As Lynsay Graham said about carbon tax and dividend, “if government doesn’t keep it it’s not a tax”. Basic exemption is technically $3000-4000 per person lost tax revenue. It’s not actually because it’s made up elsewhere. It’s also a subsidy primarily for the poor paid by higher taxes on the better off. Having $3000 UBI and no basic exemption doesn’t change government budget one bit.
UBI reduces government budget and net tax collections required by cutting programs.
A tax funded healthcare system that is less expensive than what we have now is necessarily more affordable than what we have now. Your employer can replace your healthcare costs with a raise. Your tax bill is lower than your health insurance premiums, and the insurer will actually cover you when you need them.
40% clawback on SS benefits would mean the average gets more with UBI. Letting people choose between SS benefits and UBI (at +SS at 40% SS clawback) would make sure that no one get’s less, and most get more to account for inflation. Only the poorest get much more. Your math certainly did not exclude all SS spending.
Great, you just realized working pays income. Some rich people work too, btw. You could quit to get additional training for better job, while eating rice and beans for a bit. Or just asnwer recruiter calls for better pay. You get the freedom to choose your life better when you don’t starve as a result of choices. Structural oppressive slavery means less freedom. No need for mental gymnastics to justify how perfect everything is now.
Where ?
Standard deduction is $15,000, for that to mean $3,000 in return your effective tax rate from the feds would have to be 20% , you have to be making $100,000 to have that rate, you’d have to be making $300,000 for it to be $4,000. Median income is $40,000
Yes it does because all the people who don’t make enough to get $3,000 from the standard deduction will now get it. Either way increasing that deduction by 4x to get a $12,000 UBI will definitely effect the government budget.
Yes but that doesn’t make it free, again Medicare is atax funded system and costs $1 trillion just to insure elderly, if we insure everyone that will necessarily cost more
SS costs $1.5 trillion, with a 40% clawback would mean it costs $0.9 trillion, again a trillion we don’t have because we cut revenues by 4 trillion. Even if you do your standard deduction math, which is off as I showed, were still losing 3 trillion in revenue. That leaves the 1 trillion either for a 40 % cut SS or Medicare, there is no scenario where an elderly person doesn’t come out behind.
That’s already true because of food stamps. There are also government run shelters for me to stay as well, that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of quiting and losing my current standard of living, which my boss can use to “enslave” me. Your argument is answered by any sort of social safety net. An affordable housing program and food stamps can provide the same sort of support, expanding unemployment insurance to cover quitting would give all the benfits you mentioned, while costing a lot less because your only giving benefits to those who need it and not everyone even if there very well off.
That used to be bottom tax bracket. Sorry for simplification. The point of it is that it is possible for US to screw poor harder by removing basic exemption and lowering other tax rates for same revenue. They could also turn basic exemption into a refundable tax credit which is equivalent to a UBI amount.
Removing private insurance, including their profits, from core medical coverage can significantly reduce health care costs. DGAF about private supplementary coverage, though it reasonable that it should be allowed, and further reduces core medical costs that taxpayers would fund. Very simply/obviously lower total healthcare costs saves totality of Americans money, and it is completely irrelevant what portion comes from private insurance or taxes. You’re not to be taken seriously if you can’t grasp this part and need to troll on this point.
I just cut $600B from budget and actual revenue raising “net taxes” or equivalent SS fund outlays. It’s a big cut. Many more are possible
All of those are crap conditional programs that contribute to slavery and do nothing to give people dignity and freedom. Just pure oppressive evil under hierarchy that has total contempt for humans. It costs far more than UBI because fascist oppressive assholes need discretionary control over programs, instead of “free” tax credits and debits that escape their fascist demonic control over all of our lives. It costs everything to submit to demonic zionazi pig fucking warmongering scum given the discretion to replace programs with austerity for war. It gains everything to exterminate all of their influence and discretion.
Ok just answer me what you will cut then. If you’re saying this will be balance sheet neutral and no new taxes will be raised then your going to need to make cuts to fund it. It’ll cost $4 trillion, let’s say part of that is existing deductions so bring it down to $3.5 trillion.
A large majority of the federal budget is defense(war) (~$1T), Medicare ($1T), social security ($1.5T), and medicaid ($0.9T). Food stamps are pocket change $0.1T. Even if you completely eliminated defense any sort of major new spending/tax cuts of this magnitude will require major cuts / elimination of those programs. This is why the Republicans went after Medicaid even though they knew it would be unpopular, there was nothing else to cut that would give them the money for there tax cuts.
Medicare / medicaid costs $2 trillion and you aren’t getting out of that with universal Healthcare. Yes universal Healthcare would be cheaper for those currently paying into the system but the people on Medicare and Medicaid aren’t paying into the system, it is supported by the tax revenues of working people.
How is it more difficult to cut UBI as opposed to other programs? If the fascists are in control of the government they can pass/repeal any law they want to further there war aims. Doesn’t matter if it’s food stamps or UBI. They can also purge you from the UBI roles just as well as they can food stamps for un-American activity or whatever. Ultimate power still lies with the state to tax and distribute funds, UBI won’t change that.
If that’s the case then we need to take away there actual power which lies in there control of capital / the means of production. After UBI the billionaires will still have there money which they can use to fuck up the planet and our democracy. Seriously you need to read some Marx, you understand class conflict and that increasing worker power is good but you fail to understand capitalist power and the ways we can actually take it away.
UBI of any amount always costs 0 at most. Any cuts to any programs means negative costs. This doesn’t mean that no one’s tax rates go up, but collectively, the discretionary government collects less from us, where UBI counts as a negative collection amount. UBI does permit getting rid of basic exemption without being regressive. That some investment income gets tax breaks now, like the basic exemption, can be calcuated as no tax break, but a cash cheque exactly equal to the tax break just for those who receive it. The optics of giving cash cheques just for the investor class would seem like bad optics compared to cheque amounts spread out to entire population/citizenry.
The guideline for program cuts is whether everyone, 90th percentile, or 80th percentile of program benefactors are better off with UBI instead, or with program adjustments, or program has ultra narrow oligarch benefits at great social/pluralist costs.
SS is close to UBI for seniors. Not only did 8 years of GOP threats to SS solvency not happen, latest tax bill gave a “tax free” boost to SS benefits. The prequel to our current political reality is the movie American History X. The core complaints are that lazy negroes get a larger share of social benefits. And Rodney King incident is also a a key historical marker. Everything was still right with America when the Rodney King verdict occurred. Our political timeline exists as a reaction to the George Floyd murder verdict. UBI is unassailable because there is no reason to hate it, and no one getting “undeserved” extra benefit. Demonic fanatical hatred supporting fascism comes from some plausible manipulation vector.
Rich people employing you to make useful stuff that makes you both richer than not having that opportunity, while again, making useful stuff that people want, is not the problem with free and fair markets. Rich people corrupting markets through political sponsorship/control is the problem. Democracy has never resulted in freedom. UBI is more important freedom. Instead of trolling concern over UBI getting cut, you should be worried that genuinely needed/useful road maintenance still gets budgeted. UBI prevent corruption through an obvious individual cash sacrifice for any corrupt proposal, but even useful programs face an uphill battle when you are taking cash away from everyone to accomplish it.
Marx, by advocating for labour supremacism, is not much different than con artists (Ayn Rand, OG) simping for Oligarchism. There is not a more deserving supremacist class to the wrong question of which class should that be.