
Hillary Clinton almost ran for president on a universal basic income - drewrv
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/12/16296532/hillary-clinton-universal-basic-income-alaska-for-america-peter-barnes
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MrZongle2
Key passage: _" Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the numbers work. To provide a
meaningful dividend each year to every citizen, you’d have to raise enormous
sums of money, and that would either mean a lot of new taxes or cannibalizing
other important programs. We decided it was exciting but not realistic, and
left it on the shelf."_

~~~
saurik
Don't most of the advocates of Universal Basic Income agree with the premise
of "cannibilizing other important programs"? I tend to associate UBI with
"what you get if you challenge a Libertarian to provide welfare", as it is a
single primitive that for some level of squinting replaces large numbers of
more specific programs.

~~~
thatonechad
I'm running out of things that the progressives want the government to pay for
without any logic and mathematics behind it:

1.) College 2.) Healthcare 3.) Abortion 4.) UBI

Why not just throw the entire enchilada out there and just have them pay for
everything? If giving people money allows for economic growth, then wouldn't
it make sense to just give everyone unlimited amount of money. Why stop at X
when you can go for Y.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
1,2& 3 is already free is most countries and even in developing countries like
India. Why are Americans so averse to universal health coverage?

~~~
thatonechad
They aren't against it, they are against the incompetent government that will
oversee it.

~~~
filoeleven
You've just moved the goalposts. Your original comment said:

> I'm running out of things that the progressives want the government to pay
> for without any logic and mathematics behind it

The logic behind the first three as presented is "most countries already do
this," along with the implication (justified, in my opinion) that it works out
well for their citizens.

So why wouldn't it be the same in the USA? Is our government uniquely
incapable of this? Is it that the model of these other countries is
unsustainable? Is it that we have a huge propaganda machine in place that is
convincing many of our citizens to conclude without serious and informed
consideration that it shouldn't be the role of our government to provide these
things? Or is it some other option?

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ringaroundthetx
I like how the Swiss National Bank gives dividends to the cantons.

Its shares are also publicly traded.

I really like that kind of interaction with the government and could support
something like that in the United States, more so than illiquid municipal
bonds or boring treasuries.

The Federal Reserve makes a great profit with its unprecedented position and
influence in the global markets, and should be able to do this with greater
efficacy than the Swiss National Bank. It could result in an avenue to
accomplish universal basic income at state or municipal levels or through a
variety of other programs that are recipients of FRB payouts.

------
whack
Sounds to me like they weren't willing to really commit to the idea of basic
income. For a country the size of America, you can't have any meaningful basic
income just by taxing a few specific activities. If you really believe in the
idea, you have to go whole-hog and fund it with taxes on the top 1%, 10% and
25%.

There are numerous policies which we've pursued in the past few decades which
have paid enormous dividends for the top 1% and 10%, policies such as free
trade, immigration and the transition away from manufacturing and towards
specialized services. These policies have certainly boosted aggregate GDP and
average incomes, but most of the benefits have not trickled down to the
median/lower-middle-class Americans.

Unless we take more forceful action soon, reactionary populists like Trump are
only going to keep getting more power, and before long, we're going to see a
clampdown on free-trade, immigration and technological innovation. We
desperately need a program like basic income, that taxes the winners in the
economy and provides for those being left behind, so that everyone has a
reason to cheer for and participate in national GDP growth. Yes, this means
more taxes on people like you and me, but it's well worth it to prevent a
populist revolt.

~~~
xster
60% of Democrats voting on a defense budget increase [1] more than double the
amount Trump proposed? Of course, insta approval, zero public interest.

You want to lift Americans out of poverty or provide education? Ridiculous pie
in the sky.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/07/14/most-
hou...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/07/14/most-house-
democrats-just-voted-for-a-defense-budget-far-bigger-than-
trumps/#e7df7db6ea0e)

~~~
whack
> _" For the 2017 fiscal year that ends on September 30, the Obama budget
> called for $582.7 billion, which included a base budget of $523.9 billion
> and the "overseas contingency operations (OCO) budget" of $58.8 billion. The
> Trump administration ... requested $574.5 billion in base budget and $64.6
> billion in OCO for a total of $639.1 billion... Today, the House passed a
> $696.5 billion defense bill that makes Trump's look positively reasonable in
> comparison"_

The budget increase was ~$110B. Which comes out to ~$360/year for each
American citizen. I'm all in favor of cutting military funding, but that's not
going to generate nearly enough revenue to fund a meaningful basic-income
program.

~~~
xster
Sorry, it was an overly snarky comment.

I don't think any basic income proponents are suggesting that it be funded as
a purely net-additive expense on the budget. I wasn't necessarily suggesting
that we can get basic income while keeping all existing social welfare by
cutting other non social welfare related expenses.

I'm just saying that a more equitable amount of public interest in a Pentagon
that 'lost' 6.5 trillion in funny accounting would be helpful to basic income
too, in a supplemental way. I didn't mean to let it exclude discussions on a
'primary' way of funding basic income on the budget.

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Mikeb85
Instead Hillary Clinton ran on a platform of "it's not realistic" in the
primaries, and I don't even know what in the general. "I'm with her" is the
most egocentric slogan anyone could have come up with...

~~~
mc32
Apparently she revealed in her book that she was frustrated by Bernie's one-
upping her at every turn. We'll do what she said, but have more of it, or make
even better. Offer more.

She didn't want to go down the rabbit hole cuz soon as you say I'll match
their ideas, they'd just come back with "now with more and improved [promise].

~~~
lumberingjack
I did not see that at all, I did see Sanders focused on income and wealth
inequality. IDK what HRC focused on her campaign was a cluster of womans stuff
and race stuff

~~~
mc32
Basically this:

>Hillary Clinton complains that her chief opponent in the primaries, Bernie
Sanders, consistently undercut her by one-upping her "bold" and "ambitious"
proposals without explaining how his policies would work.<

[http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/05/hillary-clinton-
complains-...](http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/05/hillary-clinton-complains-
about-bernie-s)

