[bryanlarsen]

Not necessarily. It's straightforward to make it revenue neutral.

You make it revenue neutral for the average tacpayer. If you want UBI to be $1000/month, you increase the average tax by $1000. The average taxpayer still benefit because even though they don't get more money, they have a safety net.

People making less than average get more UBI than the tax increase, and those making more pay more.

Most people get more money because the median income us a lot lower than the average.

[lotyrin]

Right, but people with lower incomes spend, and mostly on necessities, I think the idea is that most of those necessities would become more expensive (naturally or artificially due to price-fixing) if the poorest suddenly had more financial power. In the system as it stands, it seems to me like it'd just result in a bunch of money going to grocery giants and their suppliers, landlords, medical, etc.

[bryanlarsen]

Most of those are commodities, where the price is set by the cost of marginal supply.

Housing prices should go down. Housing is expensive in places with jobs and cheap in places without jobs. UBI gives people the freedom to move from the former to the latter.

Healthcare is screwed up, UBI or no.

[shahmeern]

Yeah this is the downstream effect I had in mind. You could say we'd increase supply to meet the demand but that hasn't really worked out with housing for example

[stevenhuang]

Housing is limited by supply of land. For basic goods we'd have no trouble producing more.

[AnimalMuppet]

Is it straightforward to get Congress to make it revenue neutral? And to keep it revenue neutral? I don't think so. Politicians find "free money for everybody" to be too easy a way of getting votes.

[bryanlarsen]

Straightforward? Yes. Easy? heck no.

[nostrebored]

This assumes all goods are wanted and consumed equally. Housing, milk, meat, eggs, etc. do not see downward pressure from this.