[Retric]

A flater tax rate would make up a large chunk of the difference. Basicly, at 50k you still get UBI, but it's offset by new taxes to leave your after tax income more or less the same.

At 25k, you pay a lot more in taxes, but get a UBI for a net gain.

At 0k you just get UBI, not food stamps ect.

There would probably be a net cost increase, but as SS counts as regular income it's not going to be huge for most retires. At some UBI levels it's actually less than our current system.

Programs to be removed, food stamps, HUD, welfare, unemployment insurance, Medical disability part of SS, and all the overhead associated with them.

PS: The economic gain from social mobility would likely be huge as long as you don't adjust UBI for locations. Why be poor in NY when you can live well in a cheap part of Florida.

[cheald]

You're effectively describing a negative income tax, not UBI.

[maxerickson]

There's a whole miasma of overlapping ideas.

Lots of people propose a negative income tax as a way to implement a UBI.

[Retric]

I am not sure there is a difference as UBI's must be funded.

At least in the US, oil states for example have a somewhat independent income stream.

[wang_li]

I thought the U stood for universal. If you take it back in new taxes, it's just a transfer program from productive to non-productive.

[thaumasiotes]

It's a transfer from productive to non-productive under all possible setups. How were you imagining it would be funded?

[deathanatos]

But I have to echo eanzenberg's comment,

> How do you reconcile the massive increase in spending this would cause?

If you're giving each person $13k/yr, does that not imply that you must then collect $13k/yr/person in taxes? Unless you're thinking it is all going to come from corporate taxes, then at least some of it must come from a citizen's taxes, no? (and if you do think this should come from corporations, do you not think that would have an effect on what gets passed to an employee? Why not pay a person $13k/yr less? — or more, since some people won't/can't work and we must cover them too?)

I have no idea if UBI is a good idea or not … but if people want to do it, I expect to know how it will be paid for.

[maxerickson]

You can just print the money or otherwise conjure it into existence. For instance, by telling banks to change numbers in their databases.

It probably isn't a good idea, but it's possible.

[thaumasiotes]

That's still a transfer from productive people to unproductive people. It just takes the specific form of hyperinflation.

There is no difference between taxing everyone 20% of their holdings, and printing yourself 25% of everyone else's holdings. Either way you end up with a fifth of the wealth, and everyone's purchasing power goes down so yours can go up.

[maxerickson]

Yeah, I get that. It still has economic impact. But you don't have to explicitly account for the payouts with receipts, which the post I replied to seemed to think was necessary.

[Retric]

So is prison, social security, food stamps etc. considering we have a very large and expensive system it's worth looking into improvements.

[maxerickson]

It often stands for unconditional.