Guaranteed adequate income for all?

[Narkos]

I came across this after having a conversation with a couple of winger co-workers. We got on the subject of welfare, and of course they think every person on food stamps is doing drugs and the fact they have hit rock bottom is their "choice". They are basically making the crude argument that the welfare system is full of "free riders". I'm somewhat familiar with the concept of the free rider problem, and decided to look up some stuff. Came across this cool book examining welfare reform http://www.questia.com/library/book/and-economic-justice-for-all-welfare-reform-for-the-21st-century-by-michael-l-murray.jsp which somehow lead me to this article about "Guaranteed Adequate Income" (http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_11486358). Turns out there is an organization promoting the idea http://www.usbig.net/index.html. I find this idea very intriguing. Would it work here? Would it lead to better economic security? I think they do something similar to this in Australia. Any thoughts?

[stray cat]

1. If you and others would give up all your cash to a pool for redistribution

to a minimum income level that paid for a rental unit and a stipend for food each month it might work.....However, no matter how hard you work you would never make anything more for say a house or new car or big screen tv.

[fasttense]

7. If our government has enough money to pay for useless wars

against innocent people, it has enough money to ensure economic security for evey one of its citizens.

Look at how we waste billions through wars, through bailouts to banks, through corporate welfare. If these tax dollars that you and I currently pay were to go to ensuring economic security for all American citizens, we would have enough to buy that big screen.

It does NOT require any more pay outs in taxes than what we currently pay out to defense contractors, military budgets and corporate welfare queens.

Here's an idea. Instead of giving money to banks to loan out to citizens in order to create money. Why don't we give the money directly to each American citizen at birth? It can be given to them when they turn 21. The citizen could be required to put it in a bank of their choosing and thus the banks would have the money to loan out.

A bank that treat its customers like crap would soon have no money to loan out.

Why must we funnel our national wealth through greedy idiots who call themselves CEOs and bankers?

It's all just a scheme, a con, and most people can't see through it because the corporations and banks don't want you to see the truth.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Milton Friedman, of all people...

...was an advocate of the 'negative income tax', which is an earlier iteration of this idea. The Nixon administration put together (1969) a President's Commission on Income Maintenance Programs, which ultimately led to the creation of the EITC.

So it's an idea that's been around for a long time, and used to have Republican support.

[ipaint]

3. Thomas Paine

I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.
—from the chapter entitled "Where We Are Going"

American revolutionary Thomas Paine advocated a basic Income Guarantee to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income



Our society is way past having the ability to think in terms of the common good.

[IrateCitizen]

8. That wasn't exactly what Paine's idea was about...

At least not what you have posted here. The idea is explained in some detail in Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey Kaye -- an excellent biography of the most important and least honored founder of the United States of America.

Paine's idea was basically that every citizen (meaning every white male in Paine's age) should be given an "endowment" upon reaching adulthood -- and that they could use that money to then purchase a farm, start a business, etc. Also, there was the strict stipulation that every person to whom the endowment was owed HAD to take it -- if they were rich they could just receive it and give it right back -- because in no way was it to be seen as charity. Rather, it was what Paine saw as essential to leveling the playing field and providing everyone an opportunity to improve their lot in life.

In so many ways, he was a man ahead of his time.

ON EDIT: fixed underlining

[Cleita]

4. I am more supportive of the idea of guaranteeing jobs for those

who are unemployed and able to work. Roosevelt did this to put people to work during the Great Depression and they worked on public lands building what needed to be done. The jobs should pay a living wage and provide Medicare. Our infrastructure is way overdue in needing repairing and restoration. I think this would work best. Of course as long as we are giving money to failing corporations so that they can give themselves more bonuses and the stockholders more profits, all those shovel ready projects to invest in the nation and the people of the nation that they talked about during the campaign seem to have been forgotten. We have thrown good money after bad it seems.

[Warpy]

5. That's what the minimum wage was supposed to be

and it would support a family of 4 on a thrifty budget above the poverty line in 1954.

It just never recovered after the inflation of the 70s due to nothing but conservative administrations from both parties since then.

Anyone who suggests an income floor now is simply dismissed as a communist while the wealthy 0.5% rob the fruits of everyone's labor.

[fasttense]

6. Sounds like FDR's economic bill of rights.

We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

He may be dead but his policies and vision live on.