The key here is net tax consumer vs. net tax provider. Breaking even would make you neither.
If you get $1000 but your taxes go up $2000, you're not getting $1000, you're losing $1000.
Compared to means tested unemployment programs, you'd be giving this benefit to a lot more people. If we're just doing this by taxes, then presumably Elon Musk could marry someone and his wife would be the one getting your $1000 if she wasn't employed because technically her income is 0 because her husband is elon musk and she doesn't have to work.
If you get $1000 but your taxes go up $2000, you're not getting $1000, you're losing $1000.
Compared to means tested unemployment programs, you'd be giving this benefit to a lot more people. If we're just doing this by taxes, then presumably Elon Musk could marry someone and his wife would be the one getting your $1000 if she wasn't employed because technically her income is 0 because her husband is elon musk and she doesn't have to work.
If $1000 a month is an unreasonable burden in the abstract, how about once it's embodied?
If instead of "someone" paying $1000/mo to a random person, what if it's you paying $1000/mo to a random person? Or worse, multiple $1000/mos to multiple people, since a minority of people will be net tax providers and will likely have to pay disproportionately for the benefits paid to a large pool of net tax consumers.
If instead of "someone" paying $1000/mo to a random person, what if it's you paying $1000/mo to a random person? Or worse, multiple $1000/mos to multiple people, since a minority of people will be net tax providers and will likely have to pay disproportionately for the benefits paid to a large pool of net tax consumers.
Politicians wouldn't want to make something they're going to be caught doing illegal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jinqC67U3LE
If a politician is telling you something is good in 2024, it isn't and you should probably run away in terror.
If a politician is telling you something is good in 2024, it isn't and you should probably run away in terror.
Now how is O'Keefe supposed to get unimaginably powerful people to say the most retarded things imaginable?
Here in Canada when you lobby for basic human rights they just seize your bank account and call you a nazi.
The number of $1000/mo is hardly arbitrary in terms of what's being proposed by others. It was what Andrew Yang proposed during his presidential campaign, it was the dollar value proposed in the study cited in the news story I linked to, and it's also the number used in the study cited in the LA times article that started all this. If the number is unreasonable, it's not because I picked an arbitrary number to be unreasonable, it's because the proposed number is unreasonable.
No matter how you slice it, if the government gives $1000/mo to everyone, they need to get that money somehow. Usually the proposal I see is "progressive taxation", which I've factored into my argument. You could create a federal sales tax, but that would need to be extremely high and would greatly increase cost of living. You could tax large businesses, but most people don't realize how little money is actually there -- in my example of Canada, the entire TSX stock exchange has a market cap of only 3,529 billion, so an annual cost of 360 billion(again just using the numbers the others suggested) would take 10% of the value of all publicly traded companies in the country and would completely use up that money in a single decade.
No matter how you slice it, if the government gives $1000/mo to everyone, they need to get that money somehow. Usually the proposal I see is "progressive taxation", which I've factored into my argument. You could create a federal sales tax, but that would need to be extremely high and would greatly increase cost of living. You could tax large businesses, but most people don't realize how little money is actually there -- in my example of Canada, the entire TSX stock exchange has a market cap of only 3,529 billion, so an annual cost of 360 billion(again just using the numbers the others suggested) would take 10% of the value of all publicly traded companies in the country and would completely use up that money in a single decade.
The only thing socialists hate more than productivity and food is other, slightly different socialists.
A centrist said to me "at least Kamala Harris didn't engage in a coup" and I was like "uh, you mean like the one that just occurred?"
Hey.... Uh... I'm not trying to be rude or anything, science reporting is just really bad these days.... But I read the paper the articles are talking about this and it was actually about using ferric chloride as an insecticide. They suggested instead using the ferric chloride as an etchant of copper, titrating out the resulting ferrous chloride using sodium hydroxide, and using the remaining copper chloride instead or alternatively just leave our some sugar cubes because spiders love sugar cubes and a happy spider isn't a bitey spider
The problem with speaking of UBI as a concept is that it's really easy to forget that there are costs as well as benefits, and the cost is enormous. The brick wall is between the people talking about all the benefits and the people talking about all the costs. Actual numbers matter a lot. If it is as I say and UBI will be the largest government program period and almost as large as all other government programs put together, then many of the discussions are nonsensical, such as discussion of whether the administrative costs of a small scale means tested welfare program going away would support the cost of a society-wide benefit.
Remember that this is at its core a discussion about actual implementation details, which is why it's referring to research. I've been talking about the big problems with the experiments based on the real facts about how UBI would need to be implemented.
I do understand you aren't necessarily advocating for UBI, but that doesn't change the fundamental problems with the concept. It's adherents are using studies that don't take into account the overwhelming damage the largest social program in world history would create. They just hand free money that came from magic to people and see if their lives get better. As I said, the other side of the equation is the massive harm to working people who have to pay for it, and the broader economy as a whole caused by knock-on effects.
Edit:
I'm just thinking of it, imagine if someone goes "if poor people are hungry they should just buy a farm!" -- and they produce all kinds of studies showing that owning a farm eliminates food insecurity for the owners. It's great that owning a farm is so great, but where did the money to buy this farm come from? I'm sure a lot of poor people would love owning a farm but it just isn't in the cards because it's not something they could afford to do.
Remember that this is at its core a discussion about actual implementation details, which is why it's referring to research. I've been talking about the big problems with the experiments based on the real facts about how UBI would need to be implemented.
I do understand you aren't necessarily advocating for UBI, but that doesn't change the fundamental problems with the concept. It's adherents are using studies that don't take into account the overwhelming damage the largest social program in world history would create. They just hand free money that came from magic to people and see if their lives get better. As I said, the other side of the equation is the massive harm to working people who have to pay for it, and the broader economy as a whole caused by knock-on effects.
Edit:
I'm just thinking of it, imagine if someone goes "if poor people are hungry they should just buy a farm!" -- and they produce all kinds of studies showing that owning a farm eliminates food insecurity for the owners. It's great that owning a farm is so great, but where did the money to buy this farm come from? I'm sure a lot of poor people would love owning a farm but it just isn't in the cards because it's not something they could afford to do.
There are 45 million canadians, I'm picking 30 million Canadians as the Canadian citizens over the age of 18 which would make them eligible for UBI -- it isn't likely to be given to children or non-citizens, so there would be an eligibility critera. From that point it's an extremely simple calculation, 30 million times 12,000 dollars equals about 360 billion dollars. Since that's almost as much as total federal outlays in 2023, you'd need to effectively double federal taxes to match, and I'd expect that would double the top marginal rate assuming incorrectly that the same amount of money comes in.
If we give $12,000 to each person each year, that's what it would cost, disregarding administration costs.
Presently, even under the massive taxation up here, most individuals don't pay $12,000 in income tax. Only those making 60,000 or more pay at least that much(with much more taxes elsewhere including sales tax, local tax, sin taxes and the list goes on), so it would effectively mean a small minority of taxpayers would be on the hook for paying for everything. That would put a disproportionate burden on a small number of earners such as those trying to support a family on one income by working a dangerous, dirty, or uncomfortable job. Lots of guys in the oil sands working 6 weeks of 12 hour days would see their wages hit hard. They aren't up there for the love of oil, they're up there to make money and if you jack up taxes like you'd have to on them the companies won't be able to pay enough money to keep them at work because so much is being sucked away.
Under CPP (Canada's version of social security), someone could be eligible for up to 15,672 per year, but only 3% actually get that amount. The actual amount you get is proportional to the amount you paid in, so some people will make the full amount but many people will make nearly nothing. These limitations are why CPP contributions are 5.25% on income below $60,000 and yet according to the program administrators CPP is solvent for the next 75 years. The average CPP recipient gets about $840/mo. People can start to receive CPP at age 60 for a large penalty(36% reduction in monthly payments), or 65 for the base amount, or 70 for a slight bonus. The administration of this may cost a bit more money per capita, but nowhere near as much as opening the spigots to millions of additional recipients. The numbers simply don't add up. Moreover, you'd have to politically get people to give up a program they "paid into" all their lives, and that'll be difficult. As well, programs like old age security are going to be similarly difficult to get rid of since lots of people over 70 rely on it for a chunk of their living expenses.
If we give $12,000 to each person each year, that's what it would cost, disregarding administration costs.
Presently, even under the massive taxation up here, most individuals don't pay $12,000 in income tax. Only those making 60,000 or more pay at least that much(with much more taxes elsewhere including sales tax, local tax, sin taxes and the list goes on), so it would effectively mean a small minority of taxpayers would be on the hook for paying for everything. That would put a disproportionate burden on a small number of earners such as those trying to support a family on one income by working a dangerous, dirty, or uncomfortable job. Lots of guys in the oil sands working 6 weeks of 12 hour days would see their wages hit hard. They aren't up there for the love of oil, they're up there to make money and if you jack up taxes like you'd have to on them the companies won't be able to pay enough money to keep them at work because so much is being sucked away.
Under CPP (Canada's version of social security), someone could be eligible for up to 15,672 per year, but only 3% actually get that amount. The actual amount you get is proportional to the amount you paid in, so some people will make the full amount but many people will make nearly nothing. These limitations are why CPP contributions are 5.25% on income below $60,000 and yet according to the program administrators CPP is solvent for the next 75 years. The average CPP recipient gets about $840/mo. People can start to receive CPP at age 60 for a large penalty(36% reduction in monthly payments), or 65 for the base amount, or 70 for a slight bonus. The administration of this may cost a bit more money per capita, but nowhere near as much as opening the spigots to millions of additional recipients. The numbers simply don't add up. Moreover, you'd have to politically get people to give up a program they "paid into" all their lives, and that'll be difficult. As well, programs like old age security are going to be similarly difficult to get rid of since lots of people over 70 rely on it for a chunk of their living expenses.