> because there is nowhere else to get it.

Why that? Nobody's talking about abolishing taxes. Note also that the basic income would replace many other forms of social subsidies that already exist and have harmful side effects.

Why that? Because you can't tax enough to fund a basic income for every single person.

That depends entirely on how high it is, doesn't it?

Ultimately, it's not about money but about productivity. If the economy is productive enough to give everyone a minimal standard of living as well as comforts and luxuries for those who earn them, it doesn't really matter how said minimal standard of living is "funded".

And there is little doubt that the economies of developed countries are that productive for a reasonable minimal standard.

You can free up ~4500 per adult in the US "just" by redirecting the "mandatory" portion of the Social Security Administration and the Department of Agriculture (which I believe is largely food subsidies, but I could be wrong about that). Drop Medica.. and tell people to spend some of their BI on insurance if they need it and you can just about double it, with no tax increases at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg...

Apparently the total income in the US is $13,401,868,693,000 (according to http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-tpi.htm), which is about $43k per person.

So funding a $20k/person basic income would correspond to about 50% tax? Actually I think this is an overestimate, since the declared incomes do not cover social security and corporate taxes.

You can't tax enough to fund the current government spending either....