Those who are advocating for Universal Basic Income are not really looking at the big picture. On paper it looks like a good idea but that's the only place it looks good.
People advocating for Universal Basic Income cite closing wasteful government agencices as the way to fund the program. But that alone won't be enough. In reading meterial on UBI another thing mentioned is taxes.
In an already overtaxed country like the United States people are not going to accept their taxes being raised even further.
Let me illistrate why Universal Basic Income is not fesiable:
At the time of the posting the United States Population is: 320,497,496
If the government chose to pay everyone $2,800 a month in Universal Basic Income that would come out to: 897,392,988,800
897 Billion dollars a month
Ok, so lets be fair and say that half of those people don't qualify (they are exempt for some reason or they are children) so only 160,248,748 people getting Universal Basic Income. Still being paid $2,800 a month comes out to be: $448,696,494,400
Almost $450 billion dollars a month. And these people think some how that just closing a few wasteful government departments will cover that. No, of course not. Taxes will have to be raised in order to cover that cost. For 12 months time the total is: 5,384,357,932,800
5 Trillion dollars. The government is already in debt as it is and the people pushing UBI want to either drive up the national debt or everyone's taxes (or Both)
Sadly, the people pushing for UBI haven't thought things through and looked at the big picture. UBI is not feasible.
Your numbers are a bit off. I've done a more sophisticated estimate here:
ReplyDeletehttp://cookingwithcharles.blogspot.com/2015/03/crunching-some-numbers-on-universal.html
My numbers are only off because I am going by what the Swiss are purposing, not the $10,000 a year that is being purposed here. Regardless of the numbers, it's over a trillion a year to service UBI which closing specific government departments won't cover. Taxes would need to be raised and that would be a no go with the citizens of the United States.
ReplyDeleteYou'll note that I explained every number I used, and that the model is explicitly budget-neutral.
DeleteBest of luck in college. "Regardless of the numbers" and "we need less socialism not more" are pretty good for rallying the voters, but they demonstrate zero understanding of how the system actually works. I hope you'll challenge yourself to learn something, rather than relying on far-right sound bytes.