On the UBI
I just posted this on the current page:
approximately:
327million people in the US less about 77m under 18 leaves around 250 million adults
250m * 12k per year is 3 trillion dollars
The government estimates it will receive $3.6 trillion in revenue for the fiscal year ending 9/20
unless im missing something
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so i had a look at the UBI / Freedom dividend
I dont know a lot about many thing and there are lots of smarter people than me.
To me, this doesn’t make sense.
there are four parts to funding this:
- Consolidate welfare programs
- a 10% VAT
- ‘New revenue’
- New taxes
- Certainly consolidating or substituting welfare programs would be a legitimate ‘source’ of redirected funds. $5-600bn.
The ‘health care’ benefit is a sweeping and totally unrealistic assumption. Some benefit? Maybe because some people might use some of their $ to better take care of themselves (and stay out of jail??). $100-200bn or more? To me this doesn’t make sense.
- VAT - assume his $800bn figure is even accurate. Sure, that’s ‘new revenue’ to the government. That you just took out of the economy. After all, who’s paying it? We are, from ‘the economy’ that hasn’t grown one dime yet. (You have to take the money out before you can give it to people to spend).
- ‘New revenue’ / putting money into the hands of american consumers. This is a total red herring. Where did this ‘money’ come from? Well, consolidating welfare, the VAT, and the other new taxes (below). You haven’t ‘grown the economy’, but merely churned money around to (possibly) more people who would spend it. It *could not* generate $8-900bn in economic growth. Take 800bn out of the economy in VAT, hand 800bn to people who put all 800bn back into the economy. How does that double to create an additional, new 800bn? To me this doesn’t make sense.
- Certainly you can tax top earners and pollution. However shouldn’t taxes on social security fund social security? Shouldn’t taxes on pollution fund pollution and climate change mitigation efforts? Otherwise where does the money for those things come from?
To me this doesn’t make sense.