Barack Obama advocates for universal basic income

His 5th Avenue comment.

 

Good. At least we can agree on that.

I am fully behind using my tax money to help those who are unable to work.

The problem comes when people think the definition of being unable to work is that they really would like to stay home.

 

What? He recommended UBI as a remedy to economic
inequality as a positive and useful societal fix!
The mods will not let me speak honestly and candidly but believe me your spin here is about as disingenuous as it gets.

 

The issue is are we willing to stop helping those who need it because a handful are gaming the system. Or are we going to spend (just an example) 10 million to stop 3 million in fraud.

 

If you consider something then you recommending it? He said consider not adopt or implement.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever even brought that up. I know he was just quoting what the media said and that it wasn’t him saying he could shoot someone.

 

I seldom agree with much of what you believe in, but yes, you are right here. I know a modern nation has to have safety nets, for those that have no place to earn in our economic model, and for the disabled, sick, old, etc. But if a person can work, but refuses to, and thinks he is owed a living, then no one in their right mind should allow this to happen, by taking care of them, so they can be lazy and not contribute to their own support.

Where the Right side seem to believe this is most people on safety nets, this is just evidence their their ideological beliefs are disconnecting them from reality. This has been a problem with this ideology for a very long time. Not sure if it is from a low IQ, or just what their ideology demands of them.

 

Welfare fraud is rampant.

Welfare is the last thing that should be run by the government. Charity should be a grass roots community thing, not a national program.

We don't need people handing out money, we need programs that teach skills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_fraud

Welfare fraud is widespread, but in most cases it is committed by people who are unable to make ends meet. In a 2012 study, 30 of 34 interviewed welfare recipients admitted fraud.[4] A 1988 study of 50 Chicago women on welfare found that 80% worked either full-time or part-time, but none of them reported their income to the welfare office.[38] Surveys conducted during the 1970s in Seattle and Denver showed that 50% of recipients admitted to "cheating" in order to get by financially.[39] In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, an ex-fraud investigator for IDPA estimated that 25 to 50% of welfare recipients had committed some degree of fraud.[40] A study of 450 welfare recipients in Orange County, California, found that 45% of them had committed fraud.[41] Between 1970 and 1979, there was a 729% increase in the number of fraud cases initiated nationwide.[42]

In 2016, the Office of Investigations for the Social Security Administration received 143 385 allegations and opened 8 048 cases. 1 162 persons were convicted for crime. Recoveries amounted to $52,6 million, fines to $4,5 million, settlements/judgements to $1,7 million and restitution to $70 million. The estimated savings were $355,7 million.[43]

According to estimates by auditors of the SSA, fraud against the various SSA benefits programs may account for as much as ten percent of all costs to the Social Security Trust Funds. According to John K. Webb, Special Assistant United States Attorney Central District of California, the statistics suggest an alarming increase in fraudulent claims to retirement benefits that threaten the integrity of the Social Security Trust Funds and block access by needy applicants with legitimate claims for benefits.[44]

Charles Murray has pointed out that the actual number of people who are unable to work must have gone down since 1960, due to medical advances, safety devices and decrease of manual work. Yet the percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3 percent in 2010. Since the legal definition of physical disability has not been changed substantially, he concludes that welfare fraud must be part of the explanation.[45]

The US Department of Labor reported that 1.9% of total unemployment insurance (UI) payments for 2001 was attributable to fraud or abuse within the UI program.[46] In 2012, it reported the figure as 2.67%.[47] In 2010, less than one-quarter of new welfare applications in San Diego County had some form of discrepancy, whether error or fraud.[48] In response to the perception of state officials' volume of fraud cases, the application process has become more strict. Some advocates have expressed concern that the stricter application process would make it more difficult for families in need to receive aid.[48]

 

If Obama self admittedly states that UBI is a positive productive answer to the problem of economic inequality, as he has, then there is absolutely zero doubt he would like to see this policy implemented.
If he thinks it's a very good thing why would he NOT want to implement? Dance as hard as you can....you cannot get around Obama's
own comments.

 

So how do you stop itvwithout
A. Cutting off aid to people who really need it
B. Spending more to stop it than the fraud itself even costs

 

When did he say it as the answer opposed to saying it’s somethint to “consider”?
I don’t think you know what consider means. Although I will concede if he mentioned it he’s obviously NOT opposed to the idea on its face.

 

Please don't use facts, statistics and raw numbers to counter leftist dogma. It makes them mad and doesn't seem fair, seeing as how they
are unable and unwilling to fight back by acknowledging those facts.

 

You stop programs that deal in handing out money, and start dealing in programs that focus on training and finding jobs for people.

 

Try reading the actual citation as a whole instead of parsing and cherry picking in order to avoid an inescapable conclusion. Obama suggests a number of select economic policies in order to solve the problem of economic inequality and chief among those a UBI is mentioned prominently. https://qz.com/1330077/barack-obama-mandela-lecture-on-universal-basic-income-inequality/

It's such sophist bullshit to claim because Obma did not specifically say Yes, we must institute a universal basic income
that he's not if favor of it. or only brought it up as some sort of exercise in "what about this"?

“For all the magnificence of the global economy, all the shining skyscrapers that have transformed the landscape around the world, entire communities, entire neighborhoods, entire cities, entire regions have been bypassed,” Obama declared. “For far too many people, the more things have changed, the more things stay the same.”
What else beside a UBI did Obama mention to remedy this problem?
Stop running away from the truth.

 

In spite of having the highest taxes, we are the poverty capitol of America. Its good that there is an example of what happens when Democrats have complete control.

 

How about making it temporary? If the need for welfare lasts a lifetime, did we really help them?

 

review of our workweek, how we retrain our young people, how we make everybody an entrepreneur at some level.

 

How’s that help the disabled? How’s that help a single mom with young kids?

 

Cash assistance welfare is temporary. Many of the other pgorams are helping people who DO work.

 

lifelong/generational welfare only helps those who expect to win elections by warning "if you vote for them, they'll take away your welfares!"

and we know who those people are.

 

lol. why should anyone take the cognitively dissonant right wing, seriously? nothing but fake (outrage) news is all they have.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxana...-outrage-over-corporate-welfare/#5d74872c27dd

 

it doesn't bother me, because I understand economics not fake outrage of true ignorance.

Capitalism has a natural rate of unemployment.

 

if there has ever been any questions regarding my frequent use of 'commies' to describe the left.....

 

No one is suggesting cutting funds for those who are disabled. For the rest, you simply cannot say it is working unless the need for it is reduced over time.

 

so what; the left knows the right wing eschews capitalism for their socialism on a national basis, at every opportunity.