Re:Enough with Basic Income
by Nicolas_Colin on Sunday September 11, 2016 @02:56PM
(#12474985)
The dynamic (converting universal benefits into means-tested benefits) happened 2 years ago in France with universal childcare benefits ("allocations familiales"). It's true that people weren't happy, but the pressure in favor of austerity was just too much and it was implemented very gradually.
It hasn't happened to Social Security because, if I'm not mistaken, the pension amount is proportional to what you earned during your career => hence the rich pay more but also receive more. Same with unemployment benefits.
This is actually the only way to make a universal monetary benefit politically sustainable. And UBI, with its fixed amount, doesn't match that criteria.
Re:Enough with Basic Income
by GFK_of_xmaspast on Sunday September 11, 2016 @03:05PM
(#12475018)
> Why hasn't the same thing happened to social security
I think the reason that social security survives while welfare benefits continue to be slashed regularly is perfectly clear.
The flaw here is that this would seem to apply to any form of social assistance. Why hasn't the same thing happened to social security?
The answer is that Round #2 doesn't make sense. You can't take someone who is making $60K/year + $10K UBI and take away the UBI without lowering their taxes unless you want them to burn you in effigy. But if all you propose to do is replace $10K in UBI with $10K in tax cuts for the same people, who is going to be the lobby in favor of that?
The dynamic you're describing is what happens to things like education assistance. Because people would rather have in $1 in cash money tax cuts than $1 in education vouchers. But the UBI is cash that spends just the same as the tax cut would.