> The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state pension.
In your case I am wondering why exactly is that we can't turn people away - in aggregate it is likely to save more lives since seeing people dying would be an excellent motivating factor for others to make sure they pay their health care insurance -- and since they would therefore have it and would be able to get treatment earlier, which is cheaper, thereby causing the price of health care to be pushed down (treating people in ERs is frighteningly inefficient).
How exactly does this help people in emergency situations? Or those who go undiagnosed with a condition despite having a primary care physician? What about those folks with a disability that makes it difficult for them to access health care? What about people who are discouraged from getting health care because of discrimination? What about people who live in rural areas far from some kinds of medical treatment?
Bottom line is that death is not a motivator for people in the way you think it is. Even if it was, what kind of society threatens its members with death for failing to participate in your model vision of capitalism?
Good analogy is car maintenance. Most people are very diligent about oil changes because they (inherently, I would argue) recognize the cost structure.
And I would say people don't change their oil because they know their engine will die if they go too long. They do it because it's been ingrained in their head as required maintenance, and that sort of thing is normally taken care of nowadays in a much larger package that includes filters and belts (because people vaguely remember about oil, but they're clueless about the other things.)
I'm not the one you were responding to, but my point here is that people aren't going to ensure prevention without a ton of conditioning or some greater authority forcing them to do so. The voter turnout for Australia, where people are forced by law to vote, was 93% in 2010.[0] In the USA? 41%.[1] People can't be asked to run over to their local elementary school for 20 minutes and pick the first name that pops into their head once every four years, so I doubt any sort of repercussion not mandated by law will have an effect.
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Churchill
Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI.
Live in an area damaged by a hurricane? We'll bump your BI for a year or two.
I don't think a "simpler" tax code would last much longer for the same reason.
The only way I think it could actually work is if we turned over the whole thing to a bunch of unelected technocrats like the Fed (which might not be a terrible idea since it gives them another lever on economic policy...)
So ... politicians would suddenly start to pay people to teach in the inner city? Those scoundrels! I can see why you're opposed to this concept.
In fact you support that point. Many of the complexities we have now come from adding "just one more feature" to the tax code, until we end up with something so complex that there is an entire industry built up around paying taxes.
If he said "In exchange for supporting inner-city teachers, we will be indirectly subsidizing H&R Block to the tune of $2B" you might ponder whether or not it's worth it.
It is true that over the entire history of the United States, the American public has proven itself apathetic to the abuses of their politicians, but that is a cultural problem that needs to be solved regardless of having a basic income or not.
Yes, you can.
> It operates similarly to a pension fund
It presents itself as one, but it really operates as a general-tax-supported social-benefit program with a variety of eligibility criteria.
> so it would be equivalent to confiscate peoples lifetime savings.
Sure, some people would politically attack it that way, particularly if the general BI reduced the SS benefits to which people already qualified would receive. Its less subject to this political attack, however, if SS is merged into BI in such a way that no one currently paid into SS ends up with less BI at any point than they would have received from SS.
For the record, you have zero ownership rights in your SS benefits. They can be changed at will.
But if we could trade B.I. for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other social progams-- it would probably be more cost efficient as individuals look after their money better than other people do.
Here's a video from Milton Friedman (not Tom Friedman!) who is advocating for a negative income tax-- a variation of basic income.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM