(01-11-2018 09:56 PM)olliebaba Wrote: (01-11-2018 09:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (01-11-2018 09:42 PM)olliebaba Wrote: (01-11-2018 09:38 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (01-11-2018 09:27 PM)olliebaba Wrote: No to guaranteed income. If you give free money to anyone what are the chances that the person won't blow it on sex, drugs and then wind up in the gutter and we have to bail him/her out afterward?
But what's to stop him from doing that now?
And here's the big difference. You can game today's system and get $30-40,000 out of it a year. The guaranteed income will be a lot lower. I would set it at a level where with that, plus Bismarck health insurance, plus a minimum wage job at today's minimum wage, he will be above the poverty line. That's more like the $7-10,000/year range.
That's why "work requirements" are being implemented or pushed for that matter. Who knows what will ensue.
The basic income approach would incentivize working. I would also make unemployment a workfare program. You show up for unemployment, you are given a job for 32 hours a week and you spend 8 hours in documented job search or job training, and you get paid for 40 hours at the minimum wage. I'd also look at kurzarbeit arrangements with companies that were experiencing slowdowns.
That's what I've been advocating for a long time. Anyone receiving welfare would have to WORK a certain number of hours in a certain business similar to how I got to my civilian work after the service. The government under Nixon was subsidizing agencies to employ ex-servicemen/women and after the set time was up it was up to the agency to accept them into their work force or not. With the work requirement for getting welfare as long as they're getting money from Tio Samuel they will be working. No work-no money and it'll be on them if they quit. Too bad so sad.
There's too many lazies already and if they want to panhandle that's on them. If one wants to learn a profession then they will work for their welfare dough. This will help the employers too as they'll be getting subsidized employees for free while also perhaps keeping them on after a certain time. My neighbor who's a bigwig with a cement company was having problems fill his work force, this would help solve his problem...for instance.
I'm a negative income taxer.
We have a form of negative income tax in the earned income credit. The flaw in EIC is it is tied to having custody of children.
I am sick and tired of politicians declaring they are "pro-life" and "pro-family" while they sit around and don't do anything useful.
There is nothing pro-family about our current "safety net". It punishes marriage. It punishes savings. It herds the poor into housing that becomes crime centers and turn neighboring areas into wastelands without any decent places to buy goods or groceries. If you start working and do a good job and get more hours or get a raise you can encounter a benefits cliff that leaves you with less than you had before the raise or hours increase.
A pro-family system would sweep away numerous agencies of the government.
You are a competent adult, OK, you've got X dollars to live on, let's say $16,380 to pull a number out of the air [NOTE: anyone arguing the number will be ignored it is hypothetical for illustration only].
That's it. No government subsidized housing. No utility subsidy, etc. You get $315 per week.
Now you let's say you find a job working 20 hours a week at $9 an hour. You make $9360 and have gross pay of $180 per week and take home of about $155.
Under a negative income tax, we reduce your NIT benefit by 50% of take home so now you have $155 from working and $237.50 in NIT benefits for a grand total of $392.50. You've raised your annual income from $16,380 to $20,410.
Now you end up "full-time" averaging 36 hours per week. Now your take home from work is about $275 and NIT benefit is $177.50 for a total of $452.50 or $23,530 per year.
You are moving out of poverty, you can see the benefit of working instead of working meaning you are worse off than you were before.
All people are capitalists at heart. No one is going to work 40 hours to be worse off financially than if they were working 20 hours.
If we want to be pro-life, let's address the issues that contribute to choosing abortion.
Medical care
Cost of day care
Ability to actually take time off work and spend time with your kids.
Look at the laws in most states that make it illegal to pay a birth mother anything in excess of related medical costs and compensation for work missed related to the pregnancy.