Ok, finally we’re getting a bit closer to an actual conversation.
You now understand that you are NOT advocating for a UBI, you are advocating for the addition of a “BI” (Basic Income) welfare program for the poor.
Are you suggesting this as an addition, on top of all the existing federal welfare programs? If not are you suggesting it as a net addition to welfare spending or a net neutral?
Where does the phaseout / cutoff occur? Do you here stand that by making it targeted at only those you deem “poor / deserving” that it will create even HIGHER marginal tax rates on the poor? (Unless, of course, you can eliminate those programs that have the worst effects on marginal tax rates for the poor)?
BTW, while AK proposed a relatively miserly UBI, he didn’t do so to save federal taxpayers dollars spent. (He did it to provide additional incentives to work by removing the significance disincentives towards work of the current system.) His solution for the deserving poor is to provide additional federal money to states and local charities who are much better able to determine who is and is not “deserving” than is any government, and especially the Federal government.
While I am not 100% in agreement with AK on this, I am indeed very broadly aligned.
If you , OTOH, are talking about simply adding a target BI for “the poor”, then you are at almost complete odds with him and me, and we have literally nothing left to discuss.
If you are talking about doing your BI by replacing some other federal welfare programs, then I suppose it’s *possible* you could do it without making the high marginal tax rate problem causing massive disincentive to work and climb the income ladder *worse*, but it would be very difficult to make that problem materially *better*. And in fact addressing that problem is at the core of what AK - and myself - would like to address.
If you *are* indeed interested in addressing that problem, please tell me how anything akin to what I understand is your proposal might do that, and we can continue.
(For me the most difficult issue by far is Medicaid, and prior to looking into it based on this conversation, I had not realized what a larger percentage of the issue Medicaid is.
The rest of it, however politically unlikely it would be that we could get there in the foreseeable future, is straightforward to do to improve the situation and radically reduce the immorality and injustice that it is the poor who face almost all of the highest marginal tax rates in this country, regardless of the good intentions of those who created the current situation.)
Ok, finally we’re getting a bit closer to an actual conversation.
You now understand that you are NOT advocating for a UBI, you are advocating for the addition of a “BI” (Basic Income) welfare program for the poor.
Are you suggesting this as an addition, on top of all the existing federal welfare programs? If not are you suggesting it as a net addition to welfare spending or a net neutral?
Where does the phaseout / cutoff occur? Do you here stand that by making it targeted at only those you deem “poor / deserving” that it will create even HIGHER marginal tax rates on the poor? (Unless, of course, you can eliminate those programs that have the worst effects on marginal tax rates for the poor)?
BTW, while AK proposed a relatively miserly UBI, he didn’t do so to save federal taxpayers dollars spent. (He did it to provide additional incentives to work by removing the significance disincentives towards work of the current system.) His solution for the deserving poor is to provide additional federal money to states and local charities who are much better able to determine who is and is not “deserving” than is any government, and especially the Federal government.
While I am not 100% in agreement with AK on this, I am indeed very broadly aligned.
If you , OTOH, are talking about simply adding a target BI for “the poor”, then you are at almost complete odds with him and me, and we have literally nothing left to discuss.
If you are talking about doing your BI by replacing some other federal welfare programs, then I suppose it’s *possible* you could do it without making the high marginal tax rate problem causing massive disincentive to work and climb the income ladder *worse*, but it would be very difficult to make that problem materially *better*. And in fact addressing that problem is at the core of what AK - and myself - would like to address.
If you *are* indeed interested in addressing that problem, please tell me how anything akin to what I understand is your proposal might do that, and we can continue.
(For me the most difficult issue by far is Medicaid, and prior to looking into it based on this conversation, I had not realized what a larger percentage of the issue Medicaid is.
The rest of it, however politically unlikely it would be that we could get there in the foreseeable future, is straightforward to do to improve the situation and radically reduce the immorality and injustice that it is the poor who face almost all of the highest marginal tax rates in this country, regardless of the good intentions of those who created the current situation.)