Replacing U.S. Welfare system with a Basic Income Guarantee

No. Those with low incomes receive more in basic income than they pay in taxes and those with relatively high income pay more than they receive. Thus anyone who has a tax bill larger than the income guarantee will effectively not get it.

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Yes, the current welfare system is bad. I agree.

 

Mike Konzcal made the point pretty clear.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/27/4/w318.full

The BIG proposal was to end public healthcare while giving everyone a minimum income in exchange.

I have in the links I've posted. If you read them, you'd see links to data confirming my assertions.

 

just like two income households was better for awhile, corps just raised prices so that two income households are now the norm, same would be true if uncle same sent everyone a 10k check every year

 

Nope.

That sources, at a glance, does not in any way prove that health insurance will be more expensive under BIG than currently. Care to point out what you think is relevant?

The BIG proposal was to replace all means-tested programs with a basic income guarantee.

The data does not prove them. If it did, you would actually post it. I doubt you've even read the articles yourself.

 

That is as logical as saying we should be against tax cuts because corporations will just raise prices in response. All that is being changed is how the money is being doled out. Overall, there will be no increase in the price level resulting from switching to BIG. Some prices may increase, but others may fall. If people save some of that money, it will also cancel out price increases for consumption goods.

Competition also still exists. If a company raises prices, others may keep them lower to gain more market share. Your one sentence assertions don't cut it.

 

That's actually pretty close to what I would want to have done. I would expand it, not just to a basic check. It should also include a house, transportation, water, food, internet, etc. Then people would be able to act as fully as they can, without having to worry about making money. Instead of money being the motivator, being the best in your field and knowing that you can have a future even if you fail is the best way to go.

 

It was logical. And in English. I can see where logic would (*)(*)(*)(*) up a Cato paper.

The Medicaid and S-CHIP comparisons, had you read them, would have shown you that they are cheaper on a dollar amount per patient than private insurance. Single payer has shown itself far more affordable around the world in per capita spending on health care, and as nations that rely solely on it have had lower health care costs as a percentage of GDP for decades. With as good or better care than the US.

And it was going to dump millions of poor and elderly into a more expensive health care option than Medicare or Medicaid could offer.

You're projecting, because everything you've complained about not seeing is because you're unable to click links.

 

Sorry, it wasn't.

That does not address how BIG would in any way increase the cost of healthcare. Unless the cost per year for an adult receiving big was more than $10,000, it would be fully subsidized. Let us look at the average per monthly cost of health care premiums for an individual plan.
http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/individual-premiums/

That is $215 per month, or $2,580 per year. Add in grocery costs for an adult of about $30 per week, or $1,560 per yer. Then add in rent of $400 a month. That adds to $4,800 per year. Add it all together? $8,940 per year. A $10,000 BIG would cover the full cost of all of that. Even someone who has zero income other than the BIG will have basic needs met. If they want a higher standard of living, they would need to get a job. Keep in mind that this income would remain with a lower income job, further encouraging them to work (because they wont instantly lose the $10,000). Is the BIG not enough? Increase, or have states increase it to meet variations in costs of living. Make taxes more progressive to cover the costs, and it seems like a major improvement to me.

Since they are getting the money to pay for it directly from government, it would technically be free.

No, you've just spammed a bunch of links that don't in anyway dispute a BIG.

 

First, Cato overstated how many welfare programs there are, overstated how much is spent on welfare by $240 billion dollars, overstated the administrative costs, that if they were able to be eliminated, comes to $25 billion dollars, which wouldn't fund much of BIG, and healthcare costs would rise by taking people off of Medicaid. The book by Charles Murray he cites even has an admission that BIG would costs more.

 

I agree that the system we have is not working now, but too many people are invested in that system for this kind of change. I'm pretty sure it would never happen, and if it did, it would be worse for the poor than the current, bad system.

 

Your sources ignored state and local level spending, so no, sorry, nothing was overstated. CATO included programs that should be included when referring to means-tested welfare. That you think it is valid to ignore all the little ones that add up (or that you perhaps have never heard of--proving the point our system is far to complicated) is your own problem, and the problem with your sources. Furthermore, 25 billion dollars would fund $10,000 a year income for 2.5 million Americans. That is hugely substantial, and would cover nearly 80% of all the current long-term unemployed.

 

Too many people are invested in a bad system. If that was an excuse to not change things, we would never improve anything in this country. That is no excuse to just give up.

Why would it be worse for the poor? TANF benefits, for example, pay under $300 per month for a family of three in Texas. A $10,000 per adult BIG would give that family (assuming 2 adults) over $1,600 per month.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4034

 

You still haven't shown a way to replace Medicare or Medicaid.
Shown how inflation would be addressed.
Shown education or job training being addressed.
And as Konczal pointed out, to truly catch all of the costs, the wealthy are going to go ape(*)(*)(*)(*), the oldsters will get their Lil' Scamp and Roundabout rolling gangs when their SS Medicare is effed with.

Unless I see concrete numbers, I'm not for it. You're sold on the idea and cannot present facts to counter my concerns, or the concerns of those effected by doing it.

 

Medicare and Medicaid would be replaced with the BIG. I already detailed what this might look like in post #33.

Show how inflation would be addressed? The same way it is now...just adjust the income for inflation..it is quite straight forward.

Education? Well public education is already free...and BIG is not at all aimed at fixing that mess. As for job training, people would be free to use funds to pay for job training. Plenty of organizations offer free job training, and even if states decided to offer such training in addition to the BIG, the costs would be very minuscule. It would be up to the states to decide whether to offer more benefits or not.

Under the BIG proposal, the tax rate would not increase for the wealthy above what it is now. For medicare and social security, they can be phased out so as not to go back on promises made to previous generations, as pretty much every single reformation of those programs suggest. In the future, if you are making a ton of money, you are perfectly capable of paying for retirement.

The very fact that old people would get so upset also proves the point that medicare and social security, along with other programs, result in rent-seeking and bad politics. Hence why social security is an unsustainable joke right now. If we don't reform it, odds are good it won't even exist. Unless you think social security is totally fine? How upset will people get when nothing is done to fix the problem?

Also, what concrete numbers do you need? I gave concrete numbers for what low income people would require to afford basic needs. I gave a scenario where the BIG was $10,000 per adult per year (as proposed in the article) and demonstrated it could easily cover those costs, which I specifically researched for you and posted. I've given you plenty of concrete numbers. You've refuted nothing successfully.

 

There's nothing unsustainable about SS. It's funded through to infinite, so long as there are earnings. And it is not welfare. Nor is Medicare.

Again, the healthcare issue, by putting a bunch of people into a more expensive private healthcare plan would eat into the $10k pretty deeply.

And as Konczal pointed out, the tax implications are far more complicated than you make it. If you can point to ways to get past the problems Konczal points out, it might be interesting to discuss. But, until then, it's pie in the sky with a lot of fluff.

 

Well we've stopped improving things in this country. The last positive social service reform we've had was in 1996. The problems with all of our other social services have only gotten worse sense then, and we've shown no political ability to change them. And to reform Social Security and Medicare would comparatively be minor changes. What you are suggesting would be the biggest change since the New Deal.

I don't know where you are getting a family of three with two adults as your typical family. When we're talking about the poor, we're talking about a mother and one or more kids. Assuming a mother and one child, 833 a month is not going to pay for food and rent, let alone utilities or health insurance. So this isn't going to fly.

 

The unfunded liabilities of social security are not sustainable. This should not be news to anyone paying attention. Second, social security and medicare are forms of welfare. Saying otherwise is silly. Third, I already showed you how deeply it would eat into the $10k. It wasn't deep at all.

Lastly, what problems did Konczal point out that you think refute a BIG? The fact you continually make references to things without actually stating the arguments themselves just obfuscates what you are trying to say. As of yet, you still have nothing to prove BIG is worse than our current system.

 

Big changes are not necessarily bad nor good changes. Debate the merits of a BIG, not how "big" of a change it is.

I'm getting the family of three from the data I quoted and provided a source to, which recorded the information for a family of three. When we are talking about the poor, we are talking about the poor. Many are single mothers with children, but many are not. You are also assuming the 833 a month will be the only income. For most single mothers, that will not be the case at all. Roughly 90% of all single mothers have a job.
http://www.iwj.org/faj/faj-headines/unemployment-and-working-mothers

According to this data, only 24% of unemployed single mothers receive unemployment benefits
http://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/

Under big, 100% would receive benefits, helping 4 times as many people.

Furthermore, according to the same source, only 1/3 of single mothers receive child support, and it is only $400 per month. That is half what they receive under my BIG proposal. You say the BIG is still not enough--well its better than most of them are getting now, so it is an improvement, and that has been my argument all along--not that big is ideal or perfect, but a big improvement. And the data agrees with me.

 

How is it not working?
Poverty is way down from the time before we had the social safety net.

 

Sure they are. Social Security is Pay-Go. Social Security cannot borrow money, and so cannot go into debt. If the funding isn't increased by 2033, then the benefits get reduced. Anyone paying attention knows that pointing to "unfunded liabilities" is jargon for scare tactics. I made this point to someone else, that every year you have to pay taxes. So, you have an unfunded liability for the rest of your life. But what happens? You pay it as you earn an income every year, and pay down your potential unfunded liability. Then you die, and the estate settles up. The same with SS, except, the nation presumably doesn't die unless the big asteroid collides with earth. But then, it doesn't matter, as there wouldn't be anyone to settle up with.
Neither Social Security or Medicare are welfare programs. Anyone saying they are is just silly.
Third, a single mother with a family isn't going to be spending lower on private insurance than what Medicaid pays. Frankly, I want to see a completely universal health care system. Whether it's done by Medicare, as single payer, or Medicaid, it would lower healthcare spending for everyone.

Well, I have, since I already showed the welfare state was $240 billion smaller than the Cato dope claimed. Second, you could never find a privately run institution with as low administrative costs as government provides. Third, had you read the very first link I posted, you'd have seen the BIG calculator... http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/beta-universal-basic-income-calculator
It's easy to get to a couple of thousand dollars, but far harder to get to even $10k. And, fourth (again, had you bothered to click links at all), the point was made that the welfare state ensures certain human needs are met. http://www.usbig.net/papers/010-bergmann.pdf

 

I guess that depends on when you start counting poverty and what you count as the social safety net. If you go by the Great Society, poverty was 14% in 1964 and in 2014, it looks like 14% (the year of course isn't totaled yet).



Interestingly, poverty was dropping like a rock until the Great Society. Don't know if there is a connection; merely an observation.

So we've spent a great deal of money to maintain the status quo.

 

A reduction in benefits would be an example of social security failing. The Social Security Administration itself admitted that in 2036 it will not have enough money to pay out scheduled benefits. You don't see this as a problem?

Welfare is the provision of a minimal level of well-being and social support for citizens by a government, sometimes referred to as public aid. Social security by definition provides a minimal level of well-being and social support for the elderly. As for medicare, the government pays for a large portion of the medical expenses for people on medicare. It is a huge subsidy, one of the largest items in the budget. To say these programs are not examples of welfare is simply absurd.

Under a big, the single mother with a family will be spending $0 of her own money on health insurance. The BIG will pay for the whole thing. And as my post #43 shows, most single mothers are not receiving adequate benefits under our current system, some none at all. They would, however, receive more benefits with a BIG.

False. As I have repeatedly told you, your source ignored state and local welfare spending and ignored a large amount of welfare programs simply because people didn't commonly think of them. The Cato estimate is completely accurate.

Irrelevant, true or not. We are referring to a BIG, which is a government program.

I was able to get it to 10k quite easily. Not sure what you think the point of that calculator is, but it does nothing to support your assertions.

And my point is that a welfare state in the form of a BIG would ensure certain human needs far better than our current welfare state. You have failed consistently to prove otherwise.

 

Not quite.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...reilly-says-poverty-hasnt-budged-1965-despit/

 

I see it as an easily fixable problem. But, I'll note the shift you've made from "unfunded liabilities" to "reduced benefits".

They aren't welfare. They are programs people pay into during their working years, to collect later. Welfare is help for the poor and billionaires.

Not really true all the time. If they are unemployed, they'll be looking to put food on the table, paying the rent or electric bills (but, probably not all three), instead of an overly expensive private healthcare policy.

Yet, Cato included a lot of non-welfare programs and spending. Funny that.

That has a lot of holes in it.

I realize you keep ignoring the healthcare issue on its own. But, again, on $10k, you will find a lot of people without healthcare, as they'll want to eat or have a place to live, before they opt for healthcare. If you die of starvation or exposure, you're not going to need the healthcare. And then there area ton of other problems, like children who lose parents. How does your system pay for those kids? Or a parent that is I'll and has no way to work? Again, a lot of holes.

you've not shown BIG to be any better, and the holes are enough to drive an aircraft carrier through them. You can close your eyes to reality all you want, but reality is still here.

 

Does your system include eliminating all corporate welfare?