<story><title>Moving Forward on Basic Income</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eanzenberg</author><text>&amp;quot;Tough shit&amp;quot; sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.</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>ygjb-dupe</author><text>I think it becomes even more clear; when children living in poverty are living in a society where their basic needs are sufficiently provided for, you take away a great deal of the social stigma associated with engaging child protective services.&lt;p&gt;If a parent can&amp;#x27;t function when the basics are provided, then teachers, neighbours, and family members will be less inclined to use the excuse &amp;quot;but times are tough, and that person is trying hard to be a good parent&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;IDK - I am inclined to think, having come from a broken home and having done community service for shoplifting food for me and my brother, if $parent (father in my case) can&amp;#x27;t get their shit together, the children would have been better off without 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>eanzenberg</author><text>&amp;quot;Tough shit&amp;quot; sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.</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>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Tough shit&amp;quot; sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.&lt;p&gt;Seems to me that with a universal unconditional benefit that is sufficient for adequate support of both parents and children (which, incidentally, I don&amp;#x27;t see as likely in any early-phase UBI, though over time it would hopefully grow to that level), failure to provide adequate support for children is, without exception, culpable neglect; interventions to address such neglect exist and are outside of the scope of the public benefit programs UBI would replace (though, if children are counted as beneficiaries with the benefits flowing to their legal guardian, you&amp;#x27;ve dramatically &lt;i&gt;simplified&lt;/i&gt; some aspects of the administration of those programs, as well, with a UBI.)</text></comment>