Dems, Dem-lites and Independents, who ya backing at this point and why?
POSTED BY: WISHIMAY
UPDATED: Monday, June 3, 2024 14:53
VIEWED: 19566
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Federal welfare programs include Medicaid, and totals out to $754 billion.
https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget.html
If Medicaid costs are xferred to Medicare for All, then the "welfare" costs would be significantly less than $754 billion. All of that to say that there is no way that UBI will be expenditure neutral. That money has to come from somewhere. Either taxes must be raised or cuts made somewhere else or the government will go borrow (even more) money from the Fed and pay interest on it.
The current total budget is about $4 trillion dollars. At about $2.8 trillion, the UBI program would consume almost 3/4 of the entire Federal budget, including Medicare, Social Security, and Defense spending. What happenes to Medicare for All? Social Security?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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"cuts made somewhere else" military
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"cuts made somewhere else" military
Absolute truth here.
Yang wants to reduce military spending 200 Billion, but that wouldn't be enough, and I'm not sure where he got that number.
There's another 68 Billion in food stamps.
How much is Social Security? I can't seem to find what the yearly payouts for that is. Quite a bit of that could be rolled into UBI quite easily, I would think. Some thought would have to go into a sliding scale to decide who would get more than the $1,000 per month of UBI based on need.
There should also be no cap on Social Security and Medicare. If the plan is to tax the Uber Rich more, the first place to start would be making every dime you make taxable to SSI/Medicaid. Also make certain that after a lower amount of capitol gains have been acquired, the rest would be subject to a SSI/UBI/Medicare tax as well. (This tax would have to be high enough as to not hurt middle-class investors, and would go a long way to sustaining UBI/SSI and healthcare costs).
Of course, all of these numbers would need to be adjusted for inflation every year, or else we're just starting more bubbles we don't need.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by WISHIMAY:
I think I'm going with Booker.
I saw a clip of him on Ellen, he's articulate and seems like he knows how to act. He helped balance the budget in Newark for the first time in a decade. Rethugs will like that he's pro-gun and pro-enforcing gun laws we already have. Isn't threatened by LGBTQ. If he marries Rosario Dawson he'll have the geek parade eating out of his hands. Oh, and he'd like a woman VP, so that's a great first step on that front too.
Plus being black would piss off Trump, so that could only be a postive.
Too soon to pick one for me wish. Not to soon to start looking and talking about who's running though.
T
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If anyone says they like UBI but ONLY if it's a no questions asked check in the mail every month, then I know they're just in it for the free money. And that's a concern. I like the idea of helping the poor and those that are so close to their ceiling every month, but giving people cash - as great as it sounds and as much as I'd like a bonus citizen check every month - that just leads to bad things. If you could instead get a utility/rent/food credit every month, I'd be more interested. I know that's no fun, but if you're really out to help people make life better and not tempt their weaker, darker natures, then that's the best way to go.
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SIX and all ... the link that I posted contains all of the rough figures that you're looking for
https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget.html
It lists all of the components of Federal "welfare" ...
Negative income tax (EIC)
SNAP (food stamps)
Housing assistance (section 8)
SSI
Pell Grants
TANF
Medicaid
.... plus a bunch more programs and their budgeted amounts, the TOTAL of which is $754 billion
It also lists the largest categories which make up the Federal budget
Defense
Social Security and Medicare
Welafre including Medicaid
"all other"
And THEIR total amounts, which comes to about 4 trillion. If you want to talk rough numbers, I think this is a god place to start.
Even if you were to decimate almost the entire Federal budget, it doesn't leave much left over after UBI ($2.6 trillion), especially if you want to implement Medicare for All.
Now, you MIGHT argue that UBI would be duplicative of parts of Social Security (you could reduce Social Security payouts by $1000/month), in round numbers about 60 million people receive Social Security benefits of one sort or another (retirement, disability, survivors) https://retiredamericans.org/social-security-medicare-current-facts-fi
gures-2016/ which would save about $720 billion. But that would be a huge ripoff of the Social Security budget, which has an independent revenue stream and should never have been included in the Federal budget in the first place (Thanks Lyndon Johnson).
So ...
Total current budget $4 billion
Total proposed UBI payouts $2.6 trillion
Current total welfare budget $0.7 trillion
Potential reductions in Social Security applied to UBI $0.7 trillion
Elimination of half of military spending applied to UBI $0.4 trillion
So far, I have identified $1.8 trillion dollars of possible revenue sources in the current budget, which still leaves alomst a $1 trillion shortfall.
OK, I personally think that UBI as proposed just won't work. I like the simplicity, I think we should simplify our welfare system and make monthly benefits available, but not to everyone, just to adults who fall below a certain income level. I don't think the payouts should vary across the nation according to living costs, and here's my reason why: People should be able to move to areas where living costs are lower and get maximal benefit from the money. Also, I still think that there should be separate benefits for the homeless, mentally ill, addicted, and mentally disabled, for whom "more money" is not the answer.
If I had to choose, I think Medicare for All is a better choice of expenditures, because there is both an actual benefit (healthier people, money which will mostly not flee the USA) and potential long-term cost savings (reduce the current 18% of GDP spent on healthcare to something more like the 10% that most developed nations spend).
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
If you could instead get a utility/rent/food credit every month, I'd be more interested. I know that's no fun, but if you're really out to help people make life better and not tempt their weaker, darker natures, then that's the best way to go.
Stop being practical, that will never go over in this country
Hubbs and I were talking about that last night. You give 100 people money........
12 will squirrel it away under a mattress for later, 15 will pay a bill, 8 will use it for a vacation, 7 will donate it or a part of it to charity or church, 2 people will ignore it completely, 14 people will give it to a child or spouse or relative, 7 people will buy an appliance or tech, 10 people will invest it somewhere, 18 people will spend it online, and say 7 people will go out and get drunk or buy drugs of some kind.
That could mean that 90% of people are doing something constructive with it, but the 10 percent of people who don't are the ones wreaking all sorts of destruction.
How do you avoid that? Easy, don't give anyone cash.
What about good citizen merits, like that Black Mirror episode?
Pay your taxes every year, get merits. Raise a child to the age of 18 without them going to jail? Get merits. Pay off a mortgage, get merits. Vote, get merits. Use high efficiency appliances or solar, get merits. Get a checkup, go to the dentist, ect... There are a surprising number of things the government already keeps track of, combined with things that are tracked as a patient or consumer.
Then we use your credit idea for food or utilities.
Game of Life, real style.
Oooh, even better, get caught working the system, lose merit making for a year or twelve or permanently.
Self promoting, self regulating.
And people on disability could get standard number of merits, and merits could be donated if you don't want or use them.
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I don't like all of that government intrusion. maybe YOU want to control everyone, WISHY, but I don't.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't like all of that government intrusion. maybe YOU want to control everyone, WISHY, but I don't.
Yer dense if you think they don't ALREADY do that.
Also, this could be a voluntary system. Don't like it, pay your own way.
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Quote:Yes, they already try to control people, which is how we got this finely-divided scattershot ineeficient/ ineffective approach to aid in the first place. But that just leads into the law of unintended consequences ... like the original welfare system, which disallowed aid if there was "a man" around. The aid workers would go snooping into people's homes looking for a toothbrush that didn't belong. All that did was break up families.
Originally posted by WISHIMAY:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't like all of that government intrusion. maybe YOU want to control everyone, WISHY, but I don't.
Yer dense if you think they don't ALREADY do that.
Also, this could be a voluntary system. Don't like it, pay your own way.
The most successful aid is food stamps. But a similar approch .. housing aid ... hs only made some slumlords extremely wealthy but made it impossible for "section 8" housing recipients to find housing in neighborhoods that aren't infested with gangs.
I've alread said that the mentally ill, intellectually disabled and addicted (oh, and children) need a different kind of assistance. Beyond that, I'm not about to go trying to minutely control every aspect of everyone's life. CHINA does that, it's called their "social credit" system.
Just give people money and let them make their choices.
****
But if there was a real job at a living wage for everyone who wanted to work ... we wouldn't need this aid. If you want a reprise of my REAL obssessive agenda ... the goverment needs to reform the financial system and the economy to make "aid" less necessary. This discussion of welfare is NOT my agenda.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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