
Basic income: the water room analogy - mooreds
http://www.scottsantens.com/the-water-room-analogy-why-giving-basic-income-to-even-the-richest-makes-sense
======
rday
I haven't researched this too much, but I haven't found a plain explanation
for my question either:

Isn't giving everyone $1,000 just like giving nobody $1,000?

It would improve the lives of the homeless dramatically I'm sure. But wouldn't
rent/food just inflate at the same time?

If apartment supply remains constant, but now the market of renters increases
substantially, prices rise right?

 _Edit_ : I like these answers. So if I gave a quick overview, this isn't
printing money, its a basic redistribution which gives those with less money
much more purchasing power. So prices don't rise because of this.

Things like leases and rent are generally fixed over a period of time. So you
aren't getting a sudden increase in cost. You are getting the ability to do
things like pay off your credit cards, student loans, and catch up on other
payments.

Now you are (hopefully) not in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Maybe you
don't have to work a second job to make interest payments, and you can invest
in education or something along those lines.

~~~
sz4kerto
No, it's not the same. If you have 11 people, one of them has 10 units of
money, the rest have 1, then there's 20 units of money ($) in the system.
Let's also assume you have 100 units of resources (R) that people can buy. So
$1 is convertible to 5R. Now you print money and give everyone $1. There is
now $31 in the system, so $1 can buy 3.22R. However, the purchasing power of
the people who had $1 now increased from 5R to 6.44R. The purchasing power of
the 'rich' guy decreases from 50R to 35R.

Or you can take money away from the 'rich' and redistribute it. That also has
some effect on prices because of other reasons (changes the consumer baskets).
But as you can see, money printing is basically tax on cash reserves.

~~~
DaFranker
Playing the Enemy here:

What happens if what you have isn't 100R, but a company that hires one
contractor part-time to build houses and make food at a flat 1$ upstream
resource cost using machines that currently have 90% idle time? Wouldn't this
situation mean that giving everyone that second 1$ let everyone have a home
and food and solve the problem entirely? The company is also happier due to
more profits and higher efficiency.

------
CapitalistCartr
This is a clumsy analogy that maps poorly to his intent. He'd have been better
served making his point directly; skipping any analogy. Say that it's harder
and more expensive to figure out who is "truly" needy than to give it to
everyone, then illustrate how. Those points would be sound on their own.

~~~
dandare
a) I totally agree. b) It can't be that difficult to compare our current costs
of welfare redistribution to the amount of welfare we redistribute, right? So
what is everybody still talking about?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its easy. The American welfare system distributes 40% of every dollar
allocated (it rates as a C or D in the charity world). The rest goes to
administration, which is another kind of welfare I guess.

~~~
danielweber
I'm not doubting you, but I would earnestly like to see those numbers and how
they are calculated.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Here's a simple analysis, which shows 75% waste:

[http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-60000-welfare-
spent...](http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-60000-welfare-spentper-
household-poverty_657889.html)

------
JonFish85
Well that's a poorly written and terrible analogy.

"You want to even give basic income to the rich?! That doesn't make any sense
at all because they don't need it, it'll cost more, and you'll be taxing them
only to give it back to them."

He doesn't even address his own premise. His example is entirely inadequate
because it doesn't address economics at all (inflation? redistribution?
recurring costs? administrative costs?).

~~~
Drakim
He does somewhat address his own premise. He is basically saying that figuring
out who to exclude is simply not worth it. Maintaining a system for deciding
"who is worthy of help" is more costy than just giving everybody help.

~~~
dragontamer
No, he _never_ says that.

He says that the current system is handing out Oculus Rifts and water-jetpacks
to everyone. Which means... any number of things.

I understand why people are supportive of the idea of basic income. But I
dunno how to interpret his description of the current system. Is the current
system wasteful? What is the analogy to Oculus Rifts actually mean? Are we
really trying to teach people how to swim with virtual reality headsets?

Maybe if we stopped handing out Oculus Rifts and Water Jetpacks, we'd have a
good system? Is his argument that we should improve our current welfare
system?

Somehow, I don't think so. By the end of the blog post, it becomes clear that
he's a supporter of basic income. But it takes _far_ too long to get to that
point. His thesis needs to be earlier, and he needs fewer analogies and more
facts.

Anyway, I think it is clear we need to reform our welfare system. But the blog
post is almost the perfect textbook example of how to NOT make an argument. So
much analogy, so little substance...

~~~
pmontra
The analogy is somewhat clumsy but he really gets to the point eventually. His
words:

"Does it make more sense to spend a lot of time and resources making sure that
only those that absolutely require help get it? Or does it make more sense to
just guarantee everyone gets help and make adjustments after the fact?

What's more efficient? All the interviewers, interview equipment,
calculations, personal judgments, and spending of resources on stuff we don't
even need? Or is it more efficient to just skip all of that, and cover
everyone, no questions asked?"

Again, more verbose than the post you're replying to but the point is the
same.

~~~
dragontamer
And the answer to that question is...

I don't know? Do you have any facts or data that actually compares the cost of
those two?

And the answer is: no, he doesn't. He just has a broken analogy. I've posted
an article in a post (somewhere else...) which actually details _real_ costs
and _real_ expenses of some welfare programs, and then compares it with a
basic income. But the blog-post linked does not.

~~~
2noame
Author of OP's link here. Hi.

I've previously written about our present welfare system in this article here:
[https://medium.com/basic-income/breaking-down-without-a-
spar...](https://medium.com/basic-income/breaking-down-without-a-
spare-a271a6ef6f7e)

Additionally, I've written about how much money we could be saving with UBI
and why/how: [https://medium.com/basic-income/universal-basic-income-as-
th...](https://medium.com/basic-income/universal-basic-income-as-the-social-
vaccine-of-the-21st-century-d66dff39073)

And here's an article that includes just how much we are spending on a whole
lot of things as a society, and how UBI would reduce these costs:
[https://medium.com/@2noame/how-we-can-transform-americas-
bro...](https://medium.com/@2noame/how-we-can-transform-americas-broken-
economic-system-to-work-for-everyone-ddba38fc328a)

This particular blog post of mine was purely an analogy made to make a single
point.

~~~
dragontamer
Interesting, you wrote both the blog post and the medium.com article. I really
do think you did a good job in the article, but your blog post is just... not
very good honestly.

I appreciate you getting back to me, but your blog post suffers from "false
analogies".
[http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/falsean.htm](http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/falsean.htm)

Its a common fallacy to make arguments from analogy. And honestly, it weakens
your argument significantly compared to the article you wrote elsewhere.

Arguments by analogy "feel" good because it sounds like you're getting the
point across in fewer words. But really... you're preaching to the choir at
best. An argument from analogy is only as strong as the connection between
your analogy and reality.

Unfortunately, talking about water jetpacks and occulus rifts break your
analogy wide open. It is clear that you aren't talking about reality anymore,
and the analogies barely serve their point when they're so disjointed to the
reality on the ground.

If you do take this argument form again in the future, please stick to
something more real.

------
efriese
This assumes that giving everyone a basic income is a life preserver. If
giving people in poverty money was the fix, we would be done. People have to
want to get out of poverty. Really want it. The system right now incentivizes
people to stay in poverty. The "cliff effect", where government benefits
decrease faster than gains in earnings, keeps many people from getting out.
Trying to address that problem first would be better than just giving everyone
money.

~~~
krschultz
That's actually one of the arguments _for_ the universal basic income. If
everyone gets the basic income, as you make more money, it doesn't decrease
your benefits.

Means testing (i.e. reducing benefits as you make more money) is what creates
the really high effective marginal tax rate that you describe. The opposite of
means testing is giving it to everyone.

~~~
efriese
No I get that, but are you really advocating giving everyone the amount that
the lowest tier get today? It's like $35k per year total.

~~~
unprepare
No one is claiming we should hand out an amount that is larger than the
average salary in the country.

The current welfare system does incentivize staying poor and having more
children, because those increase your benefits, and moving out of that level
of income directly correlates to a decrease in benefits.

With basic income, there would be no punishment for climbing out of poverty,
your yearly income at no point declines because you were paid more money. This
incentivizes people to earn as much as possible, because there is no downside
to earning another dollar.

The kids thing is the trickier issue. I've seen people promote the idea that
people under 18 should also get a monthly stipend that is a percentage of the
adult rate. I think that this will still incentivize people to have more
children, since they can capture the extra income from it.

I have heard others say that children should not receive a basic income, and
that the income should not be increased ro changed for parents over non-
parents. This makes it so that every person over 18 receives the same amount
and does not incentivize having more children. The problem here is that
childcare costs can be high, so it seems to disincentivize people from having
children at all.

I'm not sure which is the preferred outcome, or if there are other possible
solutions, but its an interesting question to think about for sure.

------
segmondy
When I hear people ask for basic income, it reminds me of the scene in the
Matrix where Neo asks for his phone call, and the Agent replies, “What good is
a phone call if you have no mouth?”

What good is basic income if you can't afford to survive on it?

So what good is basic income of $1000 if a burger costs $100 or rent costs
$3000. Basic income is garbage, pump in free money into the economy and price
of everything will rise relatively. Then the question begs, instead of basic
income, how about basic survival needs. Free housing, free food, free water.
Well, how about education, legal system, health care, should those who don't
wish to work earn all the privileges payed for those that do all the work?

I haven't thought much about this, but strong intuition leads me to believe
that neuroeconomics and game theory can prove that this will not work.

~~~
Rainymood
>but strong intuition leads me to believe that neuroeconomics and game theory
can prove that this will not work

Strong intuition and game theory can probably prove that theoretically nobody
will want to buy an Apple watch edition ... humans are not rational, not at
all. Humans are way more complex than our models currently can describe.
Preferences can be modelled but how correct are they?

Even though it might not be feasible, I think it's a goal we should strive
for. I feel that if every basic need of a human is taken care of. That we can
progress as a human race, as one unit. Am I more important because of the
decisions my parents made to raise me well and to focus me on my studies? Am I
'worth more' than some kid in Africa who does not have the privilege to go to
school, to have a 'normal' life? Would homeless people pick themselves up if
they we're given the chance? How much of the homeless would pick themselves up
given the chance. How many 'regular people' would 'drop down', 'just quit' if
they had the chance?

I feel like basic income (or some sort) should be a moral goal of humanity as
a whole.

~~~
pas
> humans are not rational,

Okay, stop with this. Just stop for a moment and define rationality: chosing
the best course of action based on the agent's available information (let's
call information data evaulated according to the agent's preferences, maybe
even mention utility function). Now, if people value shinyness over solving
poverty, you get a lot of Apple customers.

Lo and behold, that's what's happening. People's utility functions are not
simple money, time, iPhone, Nexus 6, what should I buy!? It also includes the
whole spectra of every walk of life, spending 1000 USD on a shiny iWhatever is
not just a device for iWhatevering, but also has the value you gain by having
a nice device that your peers will want to look at. (Or maybe having a non-
iWhatever will have a negative value because you'll feel left out, peer
pressure, embarrasement! People are rational social agents.)

Yes, models usually don't deal with these stuff, but that's changing, mostly
because now we have ways to quantify it (from twitter mentions to FB likes and
easy sentiment analysis and DIY machine learning/NLP/etc.).

Just think about the discussion regarding healthcare. From an economics
standpoint the continous situation for the past decade is a clusterfuck, a
government mandate in such a well-developed state such as the USA would solve
the problem, in a few years. Done. Cheap, effective, healthy, pick three. Oh
wait, you can't because politics, because social status, because discrepancies
in how people view the world. And even though you can model politics itself,
there's not much point in it, because the actors/agents/dickwads are either
too simplistic (so some kind of personal agenda driven) or too influenced by
invested parties (healthcare providers) to care about your models, or your
models about them not caring about your models.

And that's (one) full circle, but of course we could go on.

------
encoderer
This was a conservative idea. Nixon proposed it in 1969. Others have since of
course.

In many ways it seems superior to me than welfare. Less bureaucracy, "no
social workers" is what the conservatives liked.

I will add, I found the analogy to be torturous and I had to stop by the jet
pack part.

~~~
logfromblammo
If you had ever worked in or near government, you would have been disappointed
that the analogy was not ridiculous enough.

The aqua-hoverboard is essentially a powerful water pump attached to a fire
hose. The single rider stays above water by spraying all the other people in
the face with his jet stream.

Actual government is dumber. I didn't see anywhere in the analogy a
requirement that some swimmers be required to carry 20-lb rocks. No one had
their life jacket taken away because it was either carcinogenic or
insufficiently fire-retardant. No one was given a bucket, with which to move
the water from one corner of the room to the other. No one was fined for
indecency after converting their own pants into a flotation device. None of
the life jackets were nailed to the floor, for use by the people who have
already drowned and sunk to the bottom.

But on the other side of the coin, no one hired a swim instructor for $20/hr
for 10 hours, either. The thing about government is that it simultaneously
does useful and efficient things, and also incredibly stupid and wasteful
things. That almost makes it worse, to see the one little thing that shows how
it could be, and compare that to the way it actually is.

The simpler an idea is, the less likely it is that adding government to it
will screw it up. That's why basic income is so simple. Every additional
detail is just an additional opportunity for someone to get it wrong, whether
that is accidental, due to incompetence, or intentional, for profit.

------
kabouseng
His analogy is flawed. In his analogy, some people will share their life vests
because they can already swim, and because they'll never need life vests, live
vests has no value for them, and thus sharing it means no loss to them.

Money doesn't work like that, it has value, and giving it away to more needy
people does mean you are losing money which you might need later on.

~~~
sp332
There are quite a lot of billionaires who have pledged to give away the
majority of their money though.
[http://givingpledge.org/](http://givingpledge.org/)

~~~
MollyR
That is true, but I find it also telling that they haven't actually given it
away yet.. .

I think there is a saying like "don't count your chickens before they hatch"

------
dragontamer
What the hell does Oculus Rift headsets have to do with any of this?

How the hell does money that is earmarked for Foodstamps get diverted into the
Defense Fund?

The "medium.com" article that describes our broken system was _exceptional_.
This blog post is horrible. Filled with logic holes, false analogies and
confusing metaphors. I really don't know what scottsantens is complaining
about! I honestly don't. His analogies are lazy, his debate skills are
horrible.

[https://medium.com/basic-income/breaking-down-without-a-
spar...](https://medium.com/basic-income/breaking-down-without-a-
spare-a271a6ef6f7e)

I suggest just ignoring this particular blog post, and instead reading the
above article. (Which is presumably what the scottsantens's blog post was
based on).

------
herbig
I think basic income is a really interesting topic, but this analogy is
terrible and the article is just babbling nonsense and odd Oculus name
dropping.

------
nwah1
The problem is that we live in a world in which the natural resources required
for life, such as land, are owned.

And for good reason, but it creates a paradox, whereby virtually all social
improvements result in higher rents.

These rents raise the cost of living. Thus, if you hand out everyone a basic
income, landlords will notice that they are able to charge higher rents.
Because we all need land, but they aren't making more of it.

To solve this problem, and complete the circle, it would make sense that the
basic income is funded out of rent. That is the idea behind the Citizen's
Dividend.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Oh this old tired argument. No, land is not the source of all wealth and
justice. Its just dirt. What's on land is far, far more valuable worldwide
(improvements, industry).

~~~
nwah1
I agree that the stuff on top is more important. That is precisely why we
shouldn't tax it, and only tax land.

The point is that the gatekeepers who restrict access to both nature and
improvements are huge factors in why wages are lower than they should be, and
why we aren't prospering as much as we ought to be.

Tax people for hindering production, not for laboring or producing.

------
kmeves
i think the "poorly written terrible analogy" has been upvoted to rank #3 (as
i see it now) because it points out a paradoxical logic. The key point of the
article is when he points out that the rich wouldn't care to keep their $1000.
When the reader first sees the tagline, they are intrigued because it makes no
sense to give bill gates $1000. Through the analogy, one can see though, why
it does. I think the purpose of the analogy is exactly that point--and not one
to try and match the real-world dilemma. Also... to the comment about going to
law-school and no shortage of good housing-- you are not understanding what
"poor" truly means.

------
bhayden
>Everyone can and should be forced to learn how to swim, right?

Is this such a controversial idea? I mean not literally everyone, there are
people with disabilities who need help. But is it asking too much that if
someone wants food, housing, and necessities from society that they put in
effort, in some way, to contribute back? If someone values their lives so
little they they would rather not work and die, why should we spend resources
on them?

In reality, this doesn't work because we aren't going to have 100% employment
and not everyone is able to work. But it doesn't seem to be asking too much
that those who can work (and need support) should work.

~~~
NateDad
Do you really think people who get $12,000 a year aren't going to work? It's
not about replacing income. It's about supplementing it. Everyone will still
work. They'll just have $12,000 more with which to buy food, clothing, pay
their car payment and rent, etc.

~~~
bhayden
There are a tremendous about people today, without $12k/year for free, who do
not work and have no plans to.

------
flurdy
Relevant wikipedia entries on Guaranteed Minimum Income and Basic Income and
the more radical Negative Income Tax

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax)

------
sktrdie
From an ethical/moral point of view, a UBI makes total sense; if someone
doesn't want to work, why should they be forced to? Problem is we still
haven't seen a single country implement UBI. Why is that? Wouldn't people
favor "not being forced to work" and vote for it? I'm not an economist but
perhaps the math doesn't add up. It might be that "being forced to work" makes
the overall economy healthier.

For instance, if you're a professional athlete, you have to put in the hard
work no matter what, if you want to perform the best, sometimes even against
your own will. If you look at a country's economy as a pro-athlete, it also
has to put in hard work to stay at the top.

I'm not saying that should be the way we should live our lives. In fact, most
people are perfectly happy not being pro-athletes and not having to put in the
hard work.

There's also the argument that if you have a whole country willing to decide
what they want to do (UBI), there could be a boost in innovation. That's
certainly possible, but again, any boost in innovation requires hard work. And
certainly the ones forced to do the hard work would outperform the others. But
then again, that's a form of slavery.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"Forced to work" isn't an option any more. There aren't enough things to do
(due to automation and worker efficiency). Making people do pointless jobs
isn't any kind of a solution.

------
Lawtonfogle
So how does basic income work with children? What about the inherent
unfairness in reproduction ability between the genders? What about illegal
immigrants and their children?

It is easy to create fairness in distribution when we are considering giving
every adult who controls their own income an equal amount. But how are
children paid for? Do we do like current, where each child gets you less than
the previous to incentivize smaller families? Does each child get the same
amount? What if an illegal immigrant has children that are US citizens?

Also, as poor single individuals, if we pay for children, we greatly improve a
woman's ability to have a child without much improving a man's (it is far
easier to find someone to have unprotected sex with than to find someone who
is willing have unprotected sex and to gestate a fetus for ~9 months).

For basic income to become a reality, there needs to be enough groups in a
coalition supporting it. This seems one area that could end up fracturing
potential allies of a potential coalition.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
A good question, which needs some good discussion. But far from a condemnation
of the BI. More money for families is far from a problem for children; they
would benefit first (unemployed parents; homeless families).

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>But far from a condemnation of the BI.

I'm not condemning it; I see this as just a problematic point that I don't
remember being discussed.

------
jwcacces
This is the worst analogy I have ever read.

------
venomsnake
I think that if instead of QE, the fed just sent every US citizen, no
questions asked a check for 1/300 000 000 of the total value of the programs,
the economy would have been in better shape right now and we would have
healthy levels of inflation.

~~~
krschultz
That concept is called "helicopter money", and there is an interesting debate
about whether or not it would have worked better than QE. I think it would
have, but I also think that it is unreasonable to think that it would be the
topline QE number divided by number of citizens.

The QE money wasn't spent directly. It influences interest rates, and interest
rates are extremely low right now. You have pretty terrible leverage, so it
takes a huge topline number to sway anything.

~~~
venomsnake
The problem with QE was that banks did not lend the money. When you give money
to people in the 99% they get injected into the economy immediately. They buy
instantly goods and services. Although vouchers would have worked better
though instead of cash. So people are forced to spend the money.

------
phkahler
Another analysis-free justification. Here, lets give every person $100. Assume
some people are pure consumers and some are providers. Every dollar a consumer
spends is going to be taken away in tax, because it has to be given back to
the consumers again next year. The part I've neglected is that the providers
are also consumers so the money will circulate among them under some
circumstances. That means the tax rate could be less than 100 percent. I have
yet to see anyone do a proper analysis of this to see if and how it can even
work. The stupid analogies and hand waving have to stop though.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its a red herring to inject taxes. Print the money. Not kidding, its a far
better solution.

~~~
phkahler
Gonna need a math model of that too.

------
oldmanjay
this is sloppy, and while I don't feel like putting in the effort, I'm sure I
can make an equally (in)effective analogy to prove any point I want by
similarly pulling an unrealistic scenario from thin air.

------
lotsofmangos
Or without the analogy.

No benefit traps - you get a job, you will be getting more money.

Very little admin whereas most benefits systems cost around as much or more to
run as they pay out.

Would cost about the same.

~~~
dandare
Can you please provide a source for "most benefits systems cost around as much
or more to run as they pay out."?

~~~
lotsofmangos
Fever and strong painkillers. Is almost certainly nonsense after a cursory
check.

------
Rainymood
>Why giving basic income to even the richest makes sense and a blog post
explaining it very poorly. OCULUS RIFT.

It think that basic income is something we should strive for. It will be
incredibly difficult to implement but I think we should make baby steps toward
it. Oculus Rift. It needs to be researched more. However, this analogy does a
really shitty job at explaining it. So bad it's almost satire.

DID YOU LIKE THIS COMMENT?

BECOME MY PATREON HERE!

------
skylan_q
I don't think anyone argues against the notion that substituting a basic
income in place of complicated payment/handout/welfare schemes is more
efficient.

~~~
maxerickson
I think people do sometimes poorly raise the efficiency point though,
confusing efficiency with cost, and then you get huge digressions where people
point out the obvious, that limited programs have a smaller total cost than
universal ones.

(of course better efficiency does mean lower administrative costs, but any
program should aim to have benefit spending swamp administrative costs)

------
pdx
Let's assume we do give everybody $35K per year in the USA, to pick a country.

At 320MM people in USA, we would be distributing $11T per year, if distributed
to every man/woman/child.

If we exclude people under 20 years of age (probably a good idea), we lose
80MM people, giving us an annual distribution of $8.4T

Is $8.4T per year a lot? It seems like it.

In fiscal year 2015, the US federal government is projected to spend around
$3.9 trillion.

Let's say that 50% of that is spent on providing financial safety nets. I have
no idea if that's true, but let's say it is. Those safety nets would no longer
be required, and we could offset some of our new cost by eliminating them.

That means we'd go from a $3.9T federal budget to $3.9T/2 + 8.4T = $10.35T

So we would need to multiply tax revenue by 2.6x to pay for this.

The median household income in the USA is $51K. Those families are taxed at a
rate of 13.2%. (they are in a 15% tax bracket, but first $18K is only taxed at
10%)

So, the median income of $51K takes home $44K after taxes. The government gets
$7K

Let's inflate their income by $35K, to $86K per year, because of the $35K
disbursement. Now, let's tax them 13.2% x 2.6 = 34%. We're taxing them at a
higher rate because the government needs 2.6x money to meet extra budget
required by the $35K disbursement program.

So, our median income family now has an income of $86K and are taxed at a rate
of 34%, allowing them to take home $57K after taxes.

So, for them, it works out rather nicely, moving from $44K to $57K per year,
after taxes, even with the higher tax rate.

However, most of the taxes in the US are paid by the higher tax bracket
individuals.

Those individuals would see their tax rate rise from 33% to 86%, dropping
their take home pay from $186K - 33% = 125K to (186K + 35K) - 86% = $30K after
taxes.

Obviously we would have to rework our tax system, as that can't fly, but even
with reworking it somehow, I guess I don't see a way to inflate the federal
budget by 2.6x

======

OK, obviously $35K is way too much. Let's do it so a man and wife get $34K
combined, so $17K per person.

Now we're at $4.1T for this program, to give $17K to every adult of 20 or
older.

Again, deducting 50% of our current $3.9T budget and adding $4.1T, we're at a
new federal budget of $6.05T

That's 1.55x greater than our current budget, so we need to raise tax revenue
by 1.55x to compensate.

Perhaps this becomes possible, assuming 50% of our current federal budget can
really be eliminated as redundant.

Social Security alone is 23% of the federal budget, and could probably be
replaced by this program. Just 27% to go!

~~~
dandare
someone above suggested the welfare aka safety net amounts to 40% of total
expenditures, not 50%. Also once you exclude the under 20 population from your
basic income you should exclude their welfare aka safety net costs. But in
general your calculation has nothing to do with the cost of distributing
welfare - the main driver behind basic income - instead you simply want to tax
the rich and redistribute the money to the poor. I am not saying it is not a
good idea, all I am saying is it has nothing to do with basic income.

