Basic Income: The Totally Crazy Not Crazy Idea

[wildbilln864]

[PoliticAverse]

1. Basic Income proponents usually make an error - taking the total amount spent on social welfare

spending dividing it by the number of recipients, and claiming the social welfare programs can be
replaced by giving each recipient a check for the resulting amount.

For example suppose you wanted to replace Medicare with a 'basic income' and you divided total
Medicare expenditures by the number of Medicare recipients and gave each person a check for the
resulting amount so they could pay their own medical bills. This would clearly fail because those
with very high medical bills wouldn't have enough to pay them and those with very low medical
bills would have extra cash. The issue is that much of social welfare spending really is a type of
'social insurance' and you obviously can't replace an insurance program simply by giving everyone
back the amount of the average premium paid.

[jeff47]

3. That's why you wouldn't replace Medicare with a basic income

Instead, you'd replace programs where the money is spent. Food stamps, for example.

[canoeist52]

2. Good point - "if you build a robot to fish, do all men starve to death?"

"If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life. But if you build a robot to fish, do all men starve to death?"

[appalachiablue]

4. K & R. Love Lee Camp's humor and politics. Homeboy from Richmond, VA. Go Lee!