Chairman, basic income proposals are by definition not means-tested. Everyone gets a flat amount (per unit) regardless of employment. That's how you eliminate the bureaucracy and that's how you end the "welfare trap". If you have it tied to employment, you still have a bureaucracy, and you still have a welfare trap. (And it costs more that way). Having it tied to a job is the worst of both worlds.

Phil said: "I have a quick question. Why are some people so opposed to the idea of humanity doing as little work as possible?"

Two reasons: America's fascination with atomised liberalism and a lack of continental philosophy.

Just a couple of questions:

1/. An elderly couple get 150 each per week. This covers rent, elec, bills food etc. One of them die - then what?

2/. Single lady on 150 has triplets - does she get more?

3/. Young couple with 3 kids are surviving on their 300 plus husband's salary but he gets shot serving his country - do we stop all his pay?

4/. State teacher on 7500 per year now. Does she still get this salary or is her wage cut to 150 per year? So she ends up no better or no worst than she is now?

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I apologize for my lack of clarity earlier - obviously work is a part of existence, I was thinking of jobs. And yes, a basic income tied to jobs would suddenly make the welfare trap a problem. Some benefits wouldn't go away. A sane healthcare system would be all the more necessary. This leaves us with two avenues of social spending. Next are taxes, and tax breaks. These get confusing, since income tax isn't very much of a thing anymore. Tax breaks for private citizens would be pruned by default - the conditions would be rare. Tax breaks for corporations are horrible things anyway.

I think a basic income would be something of a catastrophe for libertarianism. All at once there would be an easily identifiable benefit for everybody to gather around increasing, and there would be intense pressure at all times to increase it. Moreover, the arguments against doing so would be more abstract than, say, those against raising the minimum wage. Finally, it would remove competition in the sense that right now, there isn't really a huge monolithic group arguing for the increase of any one benefit. Then there would be.

I also oppose it because I simply don't see a justification for it. I think that, apart from administration, its effects would be almost all bad, and I oppose it philosophically as well.

A philosophical opposition I do not understand, but do accept. The effect one I do not understand. There would be pressure at all times to increase basic income, but this does not mean it would be increased. There is pressure at all times to reduce taxes. There is pressure at all times to do a lot of things that rarely go through. The only fear I have of is a government denying any person this basic income. Basic income would have to become a basic right for all citizens, with clear and inclusive rules. There would be no exceptions to these rules. For that, this would have to be written into the constitution, which will never happen.

Having a clear definition of the amount you are entitled to would be nice too, but that is impossible to scale with inflation easily.

semck, I don't quite see how it would be a catastrophe for libertarianism. Of course, I suppose it depends on the particular brand of libertarianism, but I think, on the whole, libertarians can get behind this proposal.

First, it eliminates bureaucracy. Oh how libertarians hate bureaucracy! The primary reason that libertarians oppose bureaucracy is they view it as the expansion of a necessarily oppressive government. While government spending may or may not increase, it's not going through the hands of those pesky bureaucrats.

Second, it leaves UBI recipients free to choose (tee hee) how to spend their own money. To live and die by their individual decisions. Milton Friedman himself was in favour of a form of NIT.

As for pressure for increasing or decreasing payments, I suspect that it won't be quite as troublesome as the picture you paint. In Canada, the closest thing we have to a UBI is Old Age Security (OAS). It's kind of complicated, but it's a monthly payment to seniors based on a number of factors, chief among which is the amount of time they have lived in Canada. There's also a clawback tax if you are over a certain income (around $100K per year, if I recall correctly). Despite this, it's pretty close to the NIT proposal, and while we do have people (myself included) who would argue for its expansion, there isn't a gathering every four years to chant for huge increases. I think, in general, people will realise it's a *basic* income, not a *deluxe* income.

Implementing it yesterday would be too late already.

KingCyrus, I am not sure what you mean, but I think so. People making any money don't need ("need"?) the money to survive. They might be getting less than the get now, depending on tax breaks etc.

Maniac, I'm not sure why a basic income would replace a person's salary or benefits. Presumably 3 or 4 would not be influenced; a mother would get whatever benefits soldiers are given, or maybe there would have to be a period of negotiation to figure out what that is. A teacher would be paid as a teacher and get the basic income as a citizen. For #2, how to do dependents would be tricky, so I don't know the answer. For #1, whatever happens when that happens now I guess.

semck, in addition to what others have said, there are a lot of different ways to respond to that, but mostly: libertarianism in terms of government spending is dead. It is not coming back. The welfare state is here to stay. We might as well make sure it is done in the fairest, most efficient way. I don't think it's the best of all possible worlds or anything like that, but what we have now needs to be scrapped. In other words,it's the least bad option.

ck, the problem is 150% poverty level may not be enough to completely get rid of welfare. You have to account for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare as well. Food stamps, housing stipends, etc.

God, you Americans need to hurry up and socialise medicine. ;)

And UBI should replace food stamps, etc. too.

pangloss, that is basically what the Affordable Care Act is ;)

haha no, the Affordable Care Act is nothing like socialized medicine. The single payer system would have been better, but the administration didn't have the backbone to pull through

How much are you imagining the poor getting, King Cyrus? Most welfare barely lets people make ends meet, if at all. It's not like you can be poor and suddenly get lots of money from the government.

The ACA is very nearly the opposite of socialized medicine, it's the worst kind of corporatism.

Anything would have been better than the ACA. It exacerbates every single problem; health care is still tied to employment, insurance companies still hold all the cards *and* you are now *forced* to do business with them.

I'm a huge capitalist but socialized medicine is the only solution that makes sense. Why the hell should I need to bother myself with employees health plans if I want to start a business?

@ck, what I mean is this, people at the poverty level still get subsidies for the ACA or food stamps. In order to be eligible for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps) you there are various qualifiers, but some families at 130% poverty level qualify. (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility#Income)

Likewise, people all the way at 350% of poverty qualify for limited subsidies for the ACA. Although, that is definitely on a sliding scale.
(http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/#state=&zip=&income-type=percent&income=350&employer-coverage=0&people=4&alternate-plan-family=individual&adult-count=2&adults%5B0%5 %5Bage%5 =21&adults%5B0%5 %5Btobacco%5 =0&adults%5B1%5 %5Bage%5 =21&adults%5B1%5 %5Btobacco%5 =0&child-count=2&child-tobacco=0)

Basically, my point is, people are getting more than 150% poverty level welfare.

Crap, webDip doesn't like capital D's

I was assuming that KingCyrus was being tongue-in-cheek when he said that the ACA was socialised medicine. Now I'm not sure. :P

I like to keep you guessing :P

But Ludwig von Mises was right!

Somewhat tangent, but since tax policy has been raised a number of times:

Has anyone looked at the proposals of the folks at http://www.fairtax.org? In a nutshell, this is a national retail sales tax collected at the point of end-user purchase on all new goods and services, and is meant to replace the vast majority of other taxes -- income, FICA, corporate, inheritance, etc. -- while remaining revenue neutral and vastly simplifying revenue collection, enforcement, etc. I was made to think about it by someone mentioning that illegal activities weren't taxed under some other system; they certainly would be under the Fair Tax.