You want to lift Americans out of poverty or provide education? Ridiculous pie in the sky.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/07/14/most-hou...
The budget increase was ~$110B. Which comes out to ~$360/year for each American citizen. I'm all in favor of cutting military funding, but that's not going to generate nearly enough revenue to fund a meaningful basic-income program.
I don't think any basic income proponents are suggesting that it be funded as a purely net-additive expense on the budget. I wasn't necessarily suggesting that we can get basic income while keeping all existing social welfare by cutting other non social welfare related expenses.
I'm just saying that a more equitable amount of public interest in a Pentagon that 'lost' 6.5 trillion in funny accounting would be helpful to basic income too, in a supplemental way. I didn't mean to let it exclude discussions on a 'primary' way of funding basic income on the budget.
Except this is unlikely and not happening now. Hillary could have exaggerated and talked about basic income but she didn't and lost a populist movement.
There are numerous policies which we've pursued in the past few decades which have paid enormous dividends for the top 1% and 10%, policies such as free trade, immigration and the transition away from manufacturing and towards specialized services. These policies have certainly boosted aggregate GDP and average incomes, but most of the benefits have not trickled down to the median/lower-middle-class Americans.
Unless we take more forceful action soon, reactionary populists like Trump are only going to keep getting more power, and before long, we're going to see a clampdown on free-trade, immigration and technological innovation. We desperately need a program like basic income, that taxes the winners in the economy and provides for those being left behind, so that everyone has a reason to cheer for and participate in national GDP growth. Yes, this means more taxes on people like you and me, but it's well worth it to prevent a populist revolt.