| Your biases are showing, and that's affecting the quality of your argument. "liberal controlled areas" is an indicator. People vote for policies that make sense to them. Most people like living in cities, and they like living in places where government provides services that aren't well-distributed by market mechanisms. Let's go with your $10T number. Then, let's apply a standard progressive income tax, of the kind that has been operating your entire life. Numbers are chosen for convenience and being not too far off from realistic. At 0 income, you now make $31.2K. No income tax due. At $7.5K income, such as a $15/hour job you work at for 10 hours a week for 50 weeks, you take in $39K and pay $750 -- a 10% tax bracket. At $15K income, working that job for 20 hours/week, you take in $46K and pay $1875 in income tax. 7.5K * 0.10 + 7.5K * 0.15 At $30K income, working full-time at minimum wage, you take in $60K and pay 7.5K * 0.10 + 7.5K * 0.15 + 15K * 0.20 = $4875. At $45K income you take home 75K and pay $4875 + 15K * 0.25 = $6100. At $60K income you take home 90K and pay $6100 + 15K * 0.33 = $11K. At $75K income you take home 105K and pay $11K + 25K * 0.5 = $26K, and so you are a net contributor to taxes. You can set the balance point where you wish: below it, people gain money; above it, people pay more in taxes than they take in from UBI. While that's going on, you can have smaller government: you no longer need most pensions, most welfare programs, and lots of bureaucracy devoted to finding out whether people should get assistance. And one more simple change: make income tax calculated by the IRS and you file changes against their preparation, rather than you sitting down and trying to figure everything out each April. Cuts down on frustration and tax avoidance. |
Yes please. It drives me crazy that I have to waste time copying numbers between forms for my taxes.