I mean, but, if
everyone gets $12k, then doesn't $12k mean nothing? If I'm buying a car or a house, and the guy I'm bidding against is getting a $12k check, and so did I, then he ups his offer and I match it so doesn't the price just jump by the same $12k? After a year or two, won't the cost of living just go up so that the UBI no longer covers basic necessities? And isn't that just inflation... instead of printing money, injecting it into a different part of the cycle?
I know it's considered "regressive" but if we're going to pay for that I think it shouldn't come out of income tax, it should be sales tax. Specifically zero tax on basic necessities and an escalating sales tax on anything optional or luxury. A gluttony consumption tax, if you will. Want to spend your $12k on Nikes? You're only gonna get $3k of shoes for it. Make $300k a year and live on rice and beans? Keep your money. Want to buy a boat? 20% of that goes to pay for the UBI.
[edit] on the other hand, what I just wrote is probably also a prescription for destroying the world's most successful and productive economies, and the companies that fuel them. But taking a UBI out of income tax is a great way to make more people not want to work. And if Nikes get way too expensive, who knows how that could distort the economy. Maybe it would be better if the government just made some basic rules about minimum wages and work hours and let people fight it out for a buck like they do now. idk.
I know it's considered "regressive" but if we're going to pay for that I think it shouldn't come out of income tax, it should be sales tax. Specifically zero tax on basic necessities and an escalating sales tax on anything optional or luxury. A gluttony consumption tax, if you will. Want to spend your $12k on Nikes? You're only gonna get $3k of shoes for it. Make $300k a year and live on rice and beans? Keep your money. Want to buy a boat? 20% of that goes to pay for the UBI.
[edit] on the other hand, what I just wrote is probably also a prescription for destroying the world's most successful and productive economies, and the companies that fuel them. But taking a UBI out of income tax is a great way to make more people not want to work. And if Nikes get way too expensive, who knows how that could distort the economy. Maybe it would be better if the government just made some basic rules about minimum wages and work hours and let people fight it out for a buck like they do now. idk.