Sequence 6 parts 2011–2012
Basic Income + VAT
Give everyone an income and pay for it with a VAT. Then work through the objections, starting with immigration and ending with how to get there.
Is more illegal immigration the best we can do?
Will Wilkinson on Bryan Caplan’s (false?) dilemma : Bryan Caplan lays down a challenge to liberaltarians: From what philosophic point of view is “maximizing growth + lots of redistribution + the immigration restrictions lots of domestic redistribution naturally encourage” better than “maximizing growth + no redistribution + free immigration”? Whether you’re concern for the poor is…
Does Basic Income + VAT “Solve” Immigration?
One of my favorite liberal policies is the basic income proposal. The idea is that all citizens have a basic guaranteed income, below which no one may fall. As the argument goes, this supplies more flexibility than…
More on Guaranteed Income
Liveable4All dropped this video in the comments to my last post . It’s a short recording of Martin Luther King: “We are demanding an emergency to program to provide employment for everyone in need of a job, or if a work program is impractical, a guaranteed annual income at levels that sustain life and decent…
Using Basic Income to Sell a Carbon Tax
You know, I may have been looking at the Basic Income + VAT wrong. Instead of using a value-added tax to fund the basic income, perhaps we should use a basic income grant to sell a different policy… the carbon tax! Here’s what I have in mind: the US could adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax….
Another Badly-Aimed Attack on the Basic Income Guarantee
John Quiggin has been taking up the case against the basic income guarantee at Crooked Timber recently. See here and here . Unfortunately, he is attacking a weak man version of the policy. It doesn’t look like he actually opposes the BIG, in theory, but his objections all appear to demonstrate that a Basic Income…
Transitioning to BIG+VAT
John Quiggin raises some interesting questions about the BIG+VAT in the comments to the last post: I’m unconvinced by your transition strategy, though of course the nature of a transition strategy depends on the starting point. I don’t see how a ‘small’ [UBI*], say $3000/person/r or $1 trillion per year in the US context let’s…