One of the first times I ever converted my father (silent gen!) on a policy position was when he complained about this exact thing, and I said the government would waste less money by cutting everyone over 65 a flat check. Means testing is a huge money sink!
I mean, my conservative dad believes in socialized medicine (Mainly because he's retired military).
can you imagine how great universal medicare would be if the wealthiest americans could use it and wanted to use it
I feel like the solution to that is for the government to set up SendMineTo .gov (space to break link detection) where if you don't want your UBI share you can get it sent to another person or charity of your choice or kick it back into the pot to increase everyone else's share.
Yes, 100% this. It's so expensive to set up an application process and assess people's income and assets. It requires tons of people, technology both internal and public facing, help for the public to use the technology or buildings for them to apply in person. All unnecessary.
Making top marginal rates higher is a much more efficient way to make a program “means tested” We could afford to pay for long term care for all seniors with slightly higher rates, BUT the cost to billionaires would be HUGE. So we force upper-middle class people to save a ton, and then go bankrupt
Yeah, that. If the tax rates are set up sensibly, we can go ahead and help Rich Bob, bc it's not net regressive if Rich Bob's money is helping 20 people and one of them is Rich Bob.
That cost to billionaires looks huge to us non-billionaires but the billionaires wouldn't even feel it. We're asking them for scraps.
Good point! Whats the difference between 9 and 10 billion?
And there's a solution already in place, namely the tax code.
If they don’t need it they can donate it to their nearest food bank or charity.
Always was a strange complaint; money you don't need is an easily solved problem.
Can't we just have an opt-out? Like if you don't need it, fill in this thing and you can change your mind later if your situation changes. Some % of people would bother. That or just don't cash the check and whatever's unused gets divided up among the people who did cash it.
Literally take that check and immediately donate it to someone that does. Or a particular cause you care about. Boom -that is your govt spending the money how YOU want it spent.
There’s a growing case for UBI coming from the (shrinking, but still extant) sliver of the right that sincerely cares about fiscal policy. The basic outline is “eliminate most targeted safety net programs, cut a check, institute national health insurance, bam. More lightweight government.”
There's so much we could do, if Americans could ever get past their deep cultural phobia of Someone Somewhere Getting Something They "Didn't Earn"
The Protestant Work Ethic is a helluva drug
I realized this years ago and then, when I pointed this out to them, I found out my "small government" friends were actually "small government for me, big government all over thee" people
That ultimately sounds fairly similar to Nixon's plan
The health insurance one is always a head scratcher to me. “It’ll cost trillions! We can’t afford it!” “Okay, so aren’t business mostly paying those trillions now? Would a tax increase be acceptable if it came with not paying employee health insurance directly?”
And every small business should be happy to not have to deal with it
Especially since the reduced administrative load would probably result in the tax increase being smaller than whatever they currently pay, once stuff like payroll expenses and benefits management are factored in.
That's still Capitalism, though - same poverty-level cash payment to all, rather than "all basic human needs are basic human rights"; clean air, healthcare, housing, safe water, food, power, communication/data. All who judge the minimum everyone is entitled to, must personally live with no more.
I do think UBI is, unlike a lot of my other policy preferences, actually achievable in my lifetime.
One of the only safety program that absolutely cannot be replaced with cash is free school lunches. Direct-to-child aid should pass through parents’ hands only when absolutely necessary.
I don't (and stats say almost certainly won't) have kids, and I just cannot fathom people being opposed to universal free school lunch. Even if it raised my taxes -- which I'm not even sure it would given the lack of spending on admin -- it would be a minuscule cost for an obvious gain.
I regret to inform you that like most things that are broken or bad in society, the answer is usually racism.
yes but even a minuscule gain might help "those people" soooo.. no
“If preventable suffering was good enough for me then it’s good enough for all future generations” is the reasoning and pretty widespread
Is this the same logical / moral failure that results in people not wanting to invest in improved indoor (and outdoor) air quality? Been a while since I looked at numbers, but my recollection is that the investment would pay for itself in avoided sick days among other long-term health benefits.
Right? Even if "feeding kids" wasn't a good in and of itself, people learn better when they're not hungry, and I like being surrounded by people who have learned well.
I really hope that some of the people opposed to it are just bad at math and think it would personally cost them thousands per year.
Lunches AND breakfasts! Some kids are arriving on empty stomachs and I read about schools that make sure they get something when they come in and it really helps them study (and also, y'know, not be hungry.)
Yeah, we tested that back in the 1800’s and… it turned out to work so well and improve the study results so much that we extended the system twice and from 1945 all kids in Swedish schools got nutritious food for lunch regardless of their parents’ social status.
We are now busy dismantling the system to improve profits for the private equity robber barons our dumbfuck politicians allowed to extort money from various public goods though.
Free school lunches also have the benefit that eliminating means testing simplifies administration. "Okay kids everyone line up for lunch" is by far the simplest way to do food for a large group of children in a short timeframe.
yup - no "oops, forgot my card/payment slip/whatever, guess I'll go hungry" or holding up the queue fiddling about, just "here you go, next".
As someone who absolutely *can* afford to feed my children I'm still getting a massive benefit from it! I don't have to commit any executive function whatsoever to making sure they get lunch. No faffing about with packing lunches, no faffing about with sending money or paying bills. So nice.
Also doesn't shame the children who rely on the free meal!
And also allows wealthy kids who are being abused to eat.
At every school I've been to it would be really easy to implement, just yoink the payment processor at the end and you're good to go, the schools were getting enough food for all the kids and then some anyways everyday
A lot of districts do just that because it’s easier and cheaper than means testing, collecting money, maintaining payment systems, and hounding families with lunch debt.
And medicaid. Healthcare costs have way too much variance to be replaced with flat cash.
Technically, and financially, achievable, maybe. Politically, though, that's a different matter.
I’m nerdy enough to remember that Milton Friedman was a big UBI guy
To most people, something like this seems too good to be true and assume that means testing is a way to cut costs overall. The problem is people forget that means testing imposes an administrative burden that has a net cost increase rather than universal application.
I complain about this at my work. We spend dollars to determine eligibility for something in order to save cents
When you realize that the government doesn't do means testing, it's a contractor doing all that work, is when you understand why it's so popular a solution although it is more expensive than just cutting everyone checks.
But at least when it's a contractor, it's not our taxes paying for it! The galaxy brained thinking of that will never cease to amaze me.