• Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    And giving every person in America 12k/year would cost over 50% of the budget and produce almost no growth unless it was entirely funded by debt.

    It might not foster dependency but it would be incredibly expensive.

    • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You would have to start at the most vulnerable. Then eventually, you would have to target the adults who make 70k or less which is about 70% of the adult population. Then, taper it down up to 100k. This would be app. 2 trillion. I think what a lot of people are missing is, we may not have a choice to not have some kind of UBI with robots taking over quite a few jobs in the next 50 years. We have to get corporations and billionaires to pay more taxes as well. The bottom 80% are paying most of the taxes. Don’t forget that trump paid $0-$700 in taxes for quite a few years and I’m sure that’s more common than not.

      The benefits of UBI would be:

      • More people living in rural areas because they don’t have to go to the city to get jobs. They could work in a grocery store and live a decent life.
      • Have the opportunity to develop new businesses.
      • More people going to school because they could afford it.
      • More money being spent and more taxes received from that.

      Right now, our money is being funneled up to the rich shareholders of these huge companies instead of going to Americans who aren’t even getting by.

      • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It’s over 3.5 trillion if given to everyone.

        Source on the bottom 80% paying most of the taxes please?

        Don’t forget redirecting over half the budget to fund a UBI significantly alters the US economy.

          • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            If it isn’t for everyone it isn’t universal. Even at 2 trillion it would devastate our economy. We don’t have that much free money in the system.

          • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Now please provide a source on your claim that the bottom 80% pay most of the taxes as Im fairly certain that is not true.

      • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Because it is taken from the same economy. If I tax Bill $1 to give Bob $1 we didn’t see any net growth. The only way it produces growth is if we gave Bob $1 but never collected $1 from anyone which becomes unsustainable in the long term.

      • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        We cannot afford to ditch over 50% of the budget to replace it with a UBI that won’t produce much if any benefit?

          • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            No Im saying it will provide little to no net benefit to the larger economy whereas redirecting over 50% of the budget to give $12k/yr to everyone would be catastrophic to the larger economy. I suspect the economy tanking would end up hurting more than the 12k helps.

            The only way UBI doesn’t significantly harm the US economy, and to be clear Im talking about only the USA right now, is if the payments are either so small they don’t help, the payments are not universal and are targeted towards those that need money, or if the entire thing is financed by increasing the national debt which is unsustainable over the long run. None of these are as beneficial as they seem.

            • grff@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Unfortunately I think you’re arguing with idiots. You’re right it wouldn’t be able to be universal because it wouldn’t change anything if it was, it would just be made up for somewhere else and the problem would be a can getting kicked down the road for someone else to deal with