[austincheney]

The money comes from sacrificing existing entitlement programs, which might actually cost more.

Think about it like this in the US: Imagine giving everybody a basic income and eliminating minimum wage, social security, medicare, welfare, and so forth...

Naturally some people would become wealthier (paying down existing debts) and some people would become poorer (spending money more rapidly and increasing their debt burden), but these are personal decisions.

[chimeracoder]

> Think about it like this in the US: Imagine giving everybody a basic income and eliminating minimum wage, social security, medicare, welfare, and so forth...

What happens when someone inevitably spends their entire income on non-essential expenses, or bets it all on black, or gets talked into making a bad investment, leaving them with no money in the bank? Do we just tell them, "well, suck it up and get a job"? "Sorry, you can't feed yourself because you made your choice on how to spend your money"?

Replacing all other entitlement programs with a cash handout is a political non-starter.

[cmdrfred]

>Do we just tell them, "well, suck it up and get a job"?

Most entitlement programs in the United States are based on the poverty line. Currently that number is $11,770 for an individual. Working 40 hours a week you'd receive $15,080. Thus a great many working individuals simply do not qualify for much government assistance already as they not only receive more than minimum wage but they also work more than 40 hours a week.

My point is the way the system is currently designed punishes the working poor who have managed to make a life for themselves and rewards those with part time jobs, many of whom have chosen to not do so. If framed in this way I estimate that this would not only be politically viable but the party who proposed it would win in a landslide.

[pkaye]

So you are taking money out of social security and medicare which currently people earned (you return is somewhat proportional to how much taxes you paid) into a general pool? In that case, we should start applying FICA taxes on investment income also then because then it is a general tax.

[Jarwain]

I would think that medicare becomes a sort of single-payer system; you get the same Basic Income and the costs of the insurance come from the pool.

I do think that some aspects of our tax system could be reworked. Creating a wealth tax and removing income and other redundant taxes seems to be a popular idea[1]

[1](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/to-reduce-inequali...)

[gertef]

money is fungible, and SS benefits are extremely extremely loosely proportional to how much taxes you paid.