<story><title>Moving Forward on Basic Income</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acgourley</author><text>You&amp;#x27;ll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to &lt;i&gt;keep&lt;/i&gt; universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn&amp;#x27;t disincentivize work while not increasing it&amp;#x27;s size.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, if you pay attention you&amp;#x27;ll see the two types of people will squelch their vocalizations in the interest of a short term alliance in support of BI.&lt;p&gt;Personally I believe the liberal position has both moral and practical superiority. It&amp;#x27;s going to be cheaper to make sure people have bread and vaccinations despite themselves than it&amp;#x27;s going to be to solve the resulting issues later.</text></item><item><author>colinplamondon</author><text>Personally, I&amp;#x27;d hope the system would absolutely tell them &amp;quot;tough shit&amp;quot;. There&amp;#x27;s got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s where family and charity hopefully take over.&lt;p&gt;At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it&amp;#x27;s something I&amp;#x27;ve never heard mentioned before. It&amp;#x27;s almost inevitably that there&amp;#x27;ll then be the &amp;quot;food security&amp;quot; fund, and the &amp;quot;housing guarantee&amp;quot; fund.... and then we&amp;#x27;ve just recreated the existing system.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the best argument against BI I&amp;#x27;ve heard, and one I&amp;#x27;d love to hear rebuttals to.</text></item><item><author>xienze</author><text>So, a question for the BI fans:&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs.  &amp;quot;Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies&amp;quot;, they say.&lt;p&gt;But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all their money and now can&amp;#x27;t afford rent and&amp;#x2F;or food?  Do you tell them &amp;quot;tough shit, you&amp;#x27;ve exhausted all your social safety nets&amp;quot; or are there safety nets below BI, essentially recreating the welfare programs previously destroyed?  If so, how do you prevent fraud without a department following up on Joe&amp;#x27;s twelfth &amp;quot;my car broke down&amp;quot; case of the year?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>k-mcgrady</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d definitely say I look at it from a liberal (non-libertarian perspective) but I don&amp;#x27;t agree with your statement. I believe universal, free health care should be available but not a food program. The money you get as your BI should cover basic living requirements - rent, food, clothing, heat. I come from a country which has free health care (NHS) which I think should remain in place. If citizens had no choice but to pay for health care then the BI should be higher to cover that cost (although I think cost of health care would rise and people would end up screwed - hence why we should have a free system). So put simply your BI should be enough for you to live &amp;#x27;comfortably&amp;#x27;. That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean with a nice TV and steak for dinner every night - it means clean, warm shelter, healthy home cooked meals, adequate health care etc. The essentials for living. If you want anything more you can work. We&amp;#x27;re putting more trust in people by giving them the money without any conditions on it but I believe if there aren&amp;#x27;t extra safety nets and BI is equal to or greater than current welfare payments people will learn quickly. Their financial position doesn&amp;#x27;t change, just the trust put in them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Moving Forward on Basic Income</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acgourley</author><text>You&amp;#x27;ll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to &lt;i&gt;keep&lt;/i&gt; universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn&amp;#x27;t disincentivize work while not increasing it&amp;#x27;s size.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, if you pay attention you&amp;#x27;ll see the two types of people will squelch their vocalizations in the interest of a short term alliance in support of BI.&lt;p&gt;Personally I believe the liberal position has both moral and practical superiority. It&amp;#x27;s going to be cheaper to make sure people have bread and vaccinations despite themselves than it&amp;#x27;s going to be to solve the resulting issues later.</text></item><item><author>colinplamondon</author><text>Personally, I&amp;#x27;d hope the system would absolutely tell them &amp;quot;tough shit&amp;quot;. There&amp;#x27;s got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s where family and charity hopefully take over.&lt;p&gt;At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it&amp;#x27;s something I&amp;#x27;ve never heard mentioned before. It&amp;#x27;s almost inevitably that there&amp;#x27;ll then be the &amp;quot;food security&amp;quot; fund, and the &amp;quot;housing guarantee&amp;quot; fund.... and then we&amp;#x27;ve just recreated the existing system.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the best argument against BI I&amp;#x27;ve heard, and one I&amp;#x27;d love to hear rebuttals to.</text></item><item><author>xienze</author><text>So, a question for the BI fans:&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs.  &amp;quot;Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies&amp;quot;, they say.&lt;p&gt;But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all their money and now can&amp;#x27;t afford rent and&amp;#x2F;or food?  Do you tell them &amp;quot;tough shit, you&amp;#x27;ve exhausted all your social safety nets&amp;quot; or are there safety nets below BI, essentially recreating the welfare programs previously destroyed?  If so, how do you prevent fraud without a department following up on Joe&amp;#x27;s twelfth &amp;quot;my car broke down&amp;quot; case of the year?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>notahacker</author><text>The two types of people might squelch their vocalization when writing arguments in support of the BI. But both would vote in favour of the status quo against the other side&amp;#x27;s proposal if given the opportunity: liberals don&amp;#x27;t want a meagre BI to replace most of the welfare state and most existing low income tax credits and libertarians &lt;i&gt;certainly&lt;/i&gt; don&amp;#x27;t want high taxes to pay for a generous BI in addition to most existing programmes.</text></comment>