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UBI is like any other government service: if you're spending more on [Service aimed at me] than I actually need to become a productive member of society (or at least not a drain on it), you're not spending your money right. You can spend that government money on any number of services: Prisons, Childcare, Libraries, Transportation, etc. UBI is different in one major detail: UBI assumes that people are, at this stage of human technology and society, smarter about how to spend that money the government is ALREADY going to spend on them than the government itself is. Furthermore, to differentiate itself from mere "welfare", any attempt at means-testing to try and ensure that only "worthy" clients get UBI is just going to add further cost to the system. Specifically, it will cost more than simply distributing the money involved. After all, drug tests cost money. Paperwork costs money. Employing enforcers costs money AND office space AND equipment for them to do their job. It's a radical notion -- after all, doesn't figuring out if giving out "free money" actually saves money still itself cost money? Still, we're not comparing UBI to a mythical "perfect system"; we're trying to compare it to the imperfect system we have right now, where the cost of NOT doing it gets reflected in things like crime, mental illness, drug abuse, preventable deaths, etc. There is already a cost associated to continuing to do things "the way we've always done them". UBI is that same cost spent in a different way. |