| Milton Friedman argued for essentially UBI (he called it "negative income tax") 50 years ago[1]. Unfortunately, selling the American voter on anything "unearned" (I realize the U stands for "universal") that's going to come out of "my taxes" is going to be a long and uphill effort, especially when the mindset of the current administration[2] is in the other direction: > Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says the administration thinks these people should be able to get jobs, especially now that the nation's unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in years. > "People believe that able-bodied people who can work, should work," Tennessee Republican Rep. Scott Desjarlais told Perdue, "Do you have any idea why there might be so much pushback and concerns on this measure?" > "I have no clue," Perdue responded. I don't see how we get from there to: "Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a form of social security that guarantees a certain amount of money to every citizen within a given governed population, without having to pass a test or fulfill a work requirement."[3] Fox News can't even discuss UBI without dismissing it out of hand with contempt and mockery[4]. We've got a ways to go to get back even to GWB's "compassionate conservatism," much less a serious discussion of UBI. I realize how pessimistic I seem. I'm actually pretty excited by some of the current candidates. I think a couple of the candidates[5] have it right when they argue our first priority has to be to restore democracy to the political process[6] and that the way to sell that to Americans is with the notion of fairness. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM 2. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/01/707681965/more-than-750-000-c... 3. https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYGzsqQ12M 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtNcRLAlmuI 6. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1 |