So far as I know, tonight's announcement does not let anyone in.
Switzerland May Give Every Citizen $2,600 a Month
- Thread starter Banjo
- Start date
That's just about right. $4.6-4.8T per annum. All we have to do is double the tax rate and Ricter gets a massive pay raise.
this is an old Milton Friedman idea.
I like it. I am against means testing for any benefit. More money is wasted on means testing and catching means tested fraud. If one gets food stamps, all should get food stamps, including Bill Gates.
Friedman's idea was, just give everybody a monthly check and eliminate all benefits like welfare and food stamps and section 8 housing and who knows what all.
Typical unthinking knee jerk uneducated right wing opinion. Fear what you don't understand, hate what you fear.
At anyrate, Friedman thought it out a lot deeper than you ever did.
I like it. I am against means testing for any benefit. More money is wasted on means testing and catching means tested fraud. If one gets food stamps, all should get food stamps, including Bill Gates.
Friedman's idea was, just give everybody a monthly check and eliminate all benefits like welfare and food stamps and section 8 housing and who knows what all.
Typical unthinking knee jerk uneducated right wing opinion. Fear what you don't understand, hate what you fear.
At anyrate, Friedman thought it out a lot deeper than you ever did.
And both of those unemployed people don't even post for the one job!
Approximately 280 million US citizens over 21. Converting $3.6 trillion in spending to basic income would equate to $15,000 to every adult citizen aged 21 or older until their death. Roughly 1/4 of what is being proposed by the Swiss. This assumes $1T in deficit spending each year. Stay within the budget and you're looking at $11,000 per head in basic income. Do you think all of the welfare recipients will accept that drastic of a pay cut?
taxes would need to be raised, no doubt about it. We already need to raise FICA taxes to keep SSI solvent, and we should do it soon while the raise would not be as severe. You are forgetting the savings by totally eliminating many social programs, and I'm not just talking about the benefits, which I don't mind that much, but all the administrative costs that are going to incompetent, overpaid tax wasters. Plus the added social benefit of being able to completely ignore the democrats and their class warfare rhetoric. Taxes would be so high that no one would dare propose raising them any higher, or if they did, and you know the democrats would, nobody would take them seriously.
The "stipend" could be lower, at a level where few would be able to live on it alone (except maybe communal arrangements in large homes), but high enough where part-time work would cover the difference. This would allow a lot of people who can't find work right now to maybe get doing something. And taxes would not have to raised so much, maybe not at all depending on the savings you mention.