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I don't think it's a matter of too many at the bottom ...
It is; but that isn't the point I'm making: It's about having too many IN TOTAL...
The bottom are just the clamoring mob seeking the UBI schemes as a remedy.
Why? Because even when employed they CAN'T earn enough to pay their own way.
And most of THAT is about the competition these Too Many people face for those Too Few jobs.
On that last point... the term JOB has been distorted out of shape.
It's not what the standard used to be making it wrong to compare current job date with historic data.
Did I miss the part of the U.S. Constitution that authorized the Fed govt to take money from one group and hand it to another group that did nothing to earn it?
I don't know, did you miss Amendment XVI? There already is a federal income tax, and it is constitutional. Tweaking the specifics of how it works would not be unconstitutional.
Unless you're saying that EITC, a similar system that's been in place since the 1970's, is unconstitutional? A true negative income tax would be less "benefit to one group" than EITC. It would be a social safety net benefit that all taxpaying citizens would be able to receive if their income ever fell below threshold.
As an unmarried and childless adult, I have to pay more taxes than other people do, because of EITC and such. And if I made more money than I do now, I'd have to be in a higher tax bracket. Implementing a negative income tax system as a form of general welfare, wouldn't likely affect me, as I wouldn't have low enough income to qualify to receive it. But just because some income segment would receive some degree of a negative income tax, I don't see how that makes it unconstitutional.
Did I miss the part of the U.S. Constitution that authorized the Fed govt to take money from one group and hand it to another group that did nothing to earn it?
There's never been a successful challenge at the SCOTUS level to government redistribution programs. Anyone is free to file such a suit.
Progressive wealth taxes of some sort would clearly have to be involved. The details of what all specific types of taxes and on whom/what, and how all that would work exactly, would have to be worked out by people smarter than me, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be theoretically possible to implement and have a modest UBI of some type in place. I think I read that if we did that particular amount (12k per year), it would cost about $3.1 trillion annually. The current US annual tax revenue level I believe is over $4 trillion, so, it would necessarily involve increasing that. But, there could be a lot of other things that also get cut or reduced, along with it, especially anything that it would basically replace.
So, to simplify your answer, you have no data to back it up; you just want it, therefore it must be right.
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Originally Posted by primaltech
Okay, so, by this logic, if you take someone who currently has virtually $0 dollars and virtually no possessions (also known as, extreme poverty), and Jeff Bezos comes along and gifts them $5,000,000, so they now have a net worth of $5,000,000, that person will still be poor? A multi-millionaire, is poor?
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What makes you think they're still have that $5M a couple years from now? You've assumed a very simple, elementary school definition of poverty. That is, lack of money causes poverty. The real question is what causes that lack of money? This is where you separate out the true physical and mental health needs, from the lack of give a damn causes. I am more than willing to help those, in fact I think most everyone is, who truly need help because of mental or physical limitations through no fault of their own. But why should I or anyone else, fund those who don't give a damn?
What makes you think they're still have that $5M a couple years from now?
And what makes you think the average person, with $5M of wealth, will be in poverty a couple years from now? Would you be? That seems much less likely outcome to me, than them still having $5M of wealth. Especially if they use some of the money to buy a home in cash, and the home value appreciates. I think the average person would still be a millionaire after just 2 years, if they had that much money.
The average person, or most people, I mean- not everyone. Obviously, there are fools out there.
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You've assumed a very simple, elementary school definition of poverty.
No, I haven't. I've simply defined poverty narrowly for what it is, and separated it out from other questions, such as mental health, and other topics that everyone keeps wanting to somehow turn poverty inherently into. Not everyone who is not rich has anything at all fundamentally wrong with them. In fact I'd say most don't. Take me, I'm healthy, intelligent, and successful, and I've been completely broke before in my life. Had a less than zero net worth for a while while in my 20's out on my own, and I wasn't even in college. A series of favorable luck, doing well on interviews, being in the right place at the right time, and the help and support of family, helped lift me out of that. But it could have easily gone the other way.
Careful not to make the mistake of making broad assumptions about people experiencing poverty. It is really simply a lack of money, no more, and no less. It may be tied to root issues of that person, or, it may not be.
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I am more than willing to help those, in fact I think most everyone is, who truly need help because of mental or physical limitations through no fault of their own. But why should I or anyone else, fund those who don't give a damn?
You act like those are the only 2 categories. Anyway, we should have a social safety net, because that's something that society should have. It's compassionate, it's smart, it's good for the healthy economy and economic participation, it protects families and children, and it seeks to make sure all of our brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, always at least have the basic necessities of life, like food and shelter. Which, many experiencing poverty can rely on while they work themselves back up into a better situation.
It's really pretty simple like that, and it's not about socialism, or some far-fetched ideal of equity of outcome, which is a pipe dream. It's not about giving anyone anything they don't deserve. We simply cushion the fall of the most vulnerable, which includes ourselves in case we ever are in that situation. We make sure that everyone has at least a very small steady income, just enough to make sure that those who are sane, can definitely survive, and be in a situation where they at least have a bed, clean clothes and transportation for interviews and such.
And no, not everyone is sane, or will be able to do that. True. But we need to have the net in place, regardless.
Then, as I mentioned, there's also the overall big-picture issue of drastic and extreme wealth inequality, which is not good for a lot of reasons, including the health of the economy. Some degree of redistribution could help to correct that trend, slightly. And we'd still be the same old America, just an improved version.
@primaltech I think that it would be very, very interesting to make a statistical study of people who came from various economic backgrounds who received windfalls and what they chose to do with them.
I already mentioned lottery winners who ended up (after taxes and all) with millions but their "I now have infinite money to spend" mindsets or some other factors caused them to end up bankrupt shortly after. That is a thing. Other factors of course could be a problem I struggle with myself... Which is that I can be fiscally responsible all I want, but the issue I've got is that I have a warm, kind heart. I cannot close myself off and be a monster to people that I care about, close my ears and eyes to their suffering even if their choices were the cause of it. And there is no amount of money on Earth that is beyond my mother or my son's ability to waste it with disastrous life choices. With infinite money, my Mom would adopt infinite cats and my son would do infinite drugs, and here I am in the middle listening to them talk about how broke and desperate they are, and just trying to find the line where me "helping" them is actually enabling them and/or harming myself!
So if someone with poor relations gets a windfall... Don't bet on them meaningfully improving their lives in a permanent way with it. That might not happen.
But let's set aside such outlier cases as lotto winners and overnight successes in athletics and entertainment, shall we? Where might we find another group that gets, sometimes, large sums of cashola dropped in their laps?
You live in Seattle? That's what the thing says. You've got a whole big ol' group right down the road. I used to be married to one, and you bet your butt we had money, money, money rained down upon us.
The military. What do those young soldiers do with their enlistment bonuses? Their lump sum VA distributions when the military breaks their bodies and they exit with a "percentage?" How many of those guys wind up set for life on Uncle Sam's dime?
Some. Yes, some do for sure make lasting and meaningful improvements to their lives with those dollars. For sure and no doubt. But all? Most? I mean...there is a stereotype of recruits blowing their bonuses on flashy cars with flashy rims and mods, and not for nothing. Just sayin'. Nevermind how many of them marry irresponsible young women or have irresponsible low wealth and low income family members clamoring for a piece of the pie. Before you know it, the money is GONE.
And lest it seem that way, I am not assigning low moral character to those of poor backgrounds. Not at all. I'm saying that there are a myriad of ways in which poverty causes differences in mindset, and a lot of complexity to it beyond "some people could sure use more money than they have, and someone ought to give it to them."
I mean...structurally... Who ends up holding the dollars, when those soldiers blow their bonuses on flashy cars? Well, those dollars and handed up the chain. There's no trickle down but you bet, there's plenty of trickle UP. And out. And around. Where does the buck stop? Probably in the hands of a wealthy person, the only one who can afford to hold onto it?
But that's freedom, too, though. The freedom to make choices. Even bad ones. I don't want any fix that comes at the expense of our liberty. What I do want, are checks on the wealthiest and most powerful industries to prevent egregious exploitation that harms society...some of which we USED to have in place prior to the 80s. I want a basic social safety net that actually works, so that the poorest will have at least the basics to survive without being systemically brutalized. I don't believe that people must have an existential gun held to our heads in order to be productive.
I think that we as a species and at least as a nation, could provide for the basic NEEDS of everyone, and that most would not be satisfied with that most basic standard of living, would want more and be happy to work for it. I know that I am, and I'm pretty damn lazy, so...
What if we just had a very simple general dividend type system in place, where every adult age 18 and up, received $1,000 per month for life, and everyone of retirement age 65 and up also received an additional $1,000, or a total of $2,000 per month. And then everyone also received some amount of credit per month for their healthcare related costs. (Like up to $500 for young people, and $1,000 for seniors, or something like that.)
Then, we could probably pretty much eliminate and get rid of all other welfare programs (individual and corporate), and so much bureaucracy along with it. We wouldn't need Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, a bunch of subsidies and assistance programs, all kinds of stuff. Enough could be cut to probably even make it revenue neutral, or almost. Government overhead definitely would be a lot less, if all they're really having to do is cut checks. It would certainly need much less staff for that.
I think if we did that level of overhaul reform, reduce the size and scope of government, while simultaneously greatly increasing social welfare/guaranteed safety net, then we'd be able to end almost all poverty and homelessness. Or, the majority of it. Everyone else would be supplemented to improve their lives, suffering in general would be greatly reduced, and we'd shift/correct some of the extreme income inequality situation, while we're at it. I mean, why not?
I would say that very few people making $12,000 per year, would not work a job/be productive. Especially if the minimum wage nationally was $15 per hour as it should be. Just working any type of part time job would completely lift your life out of poverty. Since the current poverty line is just over that $12,000 amount. I think it's something like $13,000 as the technical definition of poverty.
When young adults are looking to educate themselves for a valuable career it makes sense to aim high at that time in their lives, whether to an Ivy League if they are accepted or to a highly paid career like medicine, law, engineering.
That's not what I did but I don't look down on those who have high goals.
I got college loans and paid them back but that was in the thousands not tens of thousands of dollars.
Some parents cannot afford to help pay for their kids college.
I'd like to see free college available, starting at community college level and then moving upward.
This country can afford it, the same way other countries can.
The rich people in US are not paying their fair share.
Free college is kind of like the College debt forgiveness - those that don't go to college are paying those that do - in many countries with free tuition, only a few get accepted and they still have big loans for living expenses.
Also - the rich are paying more than their "fair share" - the top 1% pay 38.5% of all taxes, while the bottom 50% paid 3%. Over the last couple of years, 57% and 61% paid no taxes in the US while in most countries with free medical and college - even those at the bottom pay close to 50% of their income in taxes. The top 10% pay more in taxes now than they did historically also - they pay 71% of all taxes now vs. in 1980 they paid about 49% of all taxes. Explain how they are not paying their "fair share" since they already pay for almost everything - it is really out of balance when over 60% paid no federal taxes last year.
What if we just had a very simple general dividend type system in place, where every adult age 18 and up, received...
The ratio of those who can afford to contribute (read: be taxed) vs the number who will NEED that money is out of proportion.
We have Wayyy Too Many that need more than they can earn. Giving it to them is NOT any sort of solution.
Focus solutions on WHY the problem population can't earn enough... and we might even remedy it.
Have you figured out what the economic reasons really are?
What if we just had a very simple general dividend type system in place, where every adult age 18 and up, received $1,000 per month for life, and everyone of retirement age 65 and up also received an additional $1,000, or a total of $2,000 per month. And then everyone also received some amount of credit per month for their healthcare related costs. (Like up to $500 for young people, and $1,000 for seniors, or something like that.)
Then, we could probably pretty much eliminate and get rid of all other welfare programs (individual and corporate), and so much bureaucracy along with it. We wouldn't need Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, a bunch of subsidies and assistance programs, all kinds of stuff. Enough could be cut to probably even make it revenue neutral, or almost. Government overhead definitely would be a lot less, if all they're really having to do is cut checks. It would certainly need much less staff for that.
I think if we did that level of overhaul reform, reduce the size and scope of government, while simultaneously greatly increasing social welfare/guaranteed safety net, then we'd be able to end almost all poverty and homelessness. Or, the majority of it. Everyone else would be supplemented to improve their lives, suffering in general would be greatly reduced, and we'd shift/correct some of the extreme income inequality situation, while we're at it. I mean, why not?
I would say that very few people making $12,000 per year, would not work a job/be productive. Especially if the minimum wage nationally was $15 per hour as it should be. Just working any type of part time job would completely lift your life out of poverty. Since the current poverty line is just over that $12,000 amount. I think it's something like $13,000 as the technical definition of poverty.
The issue, again, with just giving people money without addressing the behavior of the vultures, is that the end effect is simply that when the vultures get wind of a bit more meat on the bones of people in society, the cost of everything goes up as they jockey for position to snatch at it. Before long, the cost of everything is higher, the dollar is worth less, and the people are just as poor as they were, or worse.
It isn't a solution.
I've also learned that when it comes to helping my relatives that I talked about in the longer post above, giving them money usually is not meaningful in terms of its impact. Like I said, there's no limit to their ability to waste it on things that hurt their longer term position more than they help it. Like adopting more cats or doing drugs. But if there is a way for me to directly assist with something and bypass their decision making process, then I've done that and felt a lot better about it. A good example in both cases has been paying directly for storage units so that when they were at a rough time in life, they didn't lose everything they owned. Or giving them grocery store gift cards (which is essentially like giving them food stamps.) I mean, sure, they could find a way to sell those for drug (or cat?) money...but it's not super likely that they will.
That's why we have ended up with programs like food stamps and housing vouchers, but the problem is that they've been gutted to the point where they don't work so well. You can be on a waiting list for literally years, way past a point where any temporary problems you have might be fixable sometimes, for government subsidized housing. And trying to get and keep assistance, even if you need it (I mean there are people with serious problems like schizophrenia who beyond a doubt need help, but it takes years and it's very difficult to apply, to fight the appeal process, to qualify, and to continue to meet criteria...and you're in a state of enforced severe poverty for life once you're dependent on it...can never marry, can never have more than $2,000 worth of assets to your name, etc)... Like I do not believe that it's got to be so brutally hard and miserable just because everybody would sit back and mooch if it weren't.
I wouldn't! And those of you reading this...would you? I mean, if you found out that a severely disabled person got enough help to live a modest but comfortable life, would you immediately get so grumpy about it and think you should fake a disability so YOU could get free stuff? If not, then why the hell do you judge "other people" as generally being bad like that? Seriously I believe from actually interacting with tons of Americans, most people want to work. We want to be useful and to have purposeful lives. We don't have to be beaten with a stick and threatened with death in a ditch.
But indeed, there do need to be structures beyond "just give everyone money"...both to prevent a death spiral for the dollar and our economy, AND to make it so that the help that is given to people serves its intended purpose of actually helping them.
So. Back to the vultures. I think that we're going to have to see the return of regulation that was in place in the middle of last century that started getting torn apart under Reagan and more ever since, but updated to reflect modern abuses and modern problems. A lot of the anti-competitive behavior needs brought into check. The housing market needs intervention, in terms of real estate, mortgages, renting, and building. Other developed nations have proven that nationalized healthcare can work and I think we are heading that direction, and believe that it is a good move. This loan forgiveness is the tip of the iceberg for what is going to go down with education, and I think that's good, too.
Fact is, the cost of college used to be a lot more subsidized by the government, again, pre-Reagan. The spiraling lunacy of student loans was a direct consequence of shifting that burden among many others onto middle class America. The loan forgiveness is actually a very careful move at correction, not some drastic lefty free money bonanza.
Besides which, spending and deficits are going DOWN, not up, even with this sort of thing happening.
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