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