[ POLL ] An Argument Against Universal Basic Income.

Post Reply New Topic

i think the reformers should stop resisting a two-or-more-tier health care system, if that is the price of getting good enough [full coverage for the working class, with the smug middle and upper classes keeping their primo employer-based cadillac plans] - combine the medicare/medicaid bureaucracy with the national health service [BIA] and the VA hospital and clinic system [omitting their management] along with tricare [military], into one umbrella system for the working class.

large part of that is due to the accumulated bureaucracy which won't be moved.

and in the end, per president truman, "the only truly efficient form of government is a dictatorship."

uh oh if you do away with some crucial veterans benefits ,, healthcare ,,was a big motivator for me when i was considering going that route many years back .. Before formal diagnosis of HFA ..
Then aswell if you do away with entire groups of benefits , you make more Gov workers unemployed and if disabled re training programs are taken away , why would anyone care to get retraining after serious disabling issues occur in their lives , accident survivors and the whatnot.
' i do think in a Utopian kinda way that Universal Income would be ideal. '

us vets would still get our VA healthcare but as part of a much larger system treating more people. PC3 [present form of VA community care, replacing an earlier system whose name escapes me now] is a taste of it. and the retraining programs would have to stay and be expanded and made part of existing quality vocational college programs.

It will probably be even more difficult once everyone gets used to the post-Brexit situation.

Where I'm from lots don't even want to help someone trying desperately to find employment but cant due to various circumstances beyond their control like disabilities. Any poor individual asking for help is accused of being a lazy leech sucking on the teats of the hard-working American taxpayer. However the people who complain the loudest about that are the 1s who have a lot of money & they're also complaining just as loudly about how they need tax breaks & government bailouts. It's wrong for any low income individual to ask for a "handout" but the mega rich deserve more money than they already have

I think that a compromise between the people who support a Universal Basic Income & the people who are against it is that we should invest in our workforce. We should provide quality medical care for people with various physical &/or mental disabilities. Provide quality education for everyone. Fund programs that help people with various issues(like disabilities) find jobs that they can handle. Raise the minimum wage. To name a few things. Helping people who want to work benefits the economy. Having more people working means more people are paying back into the system instead of being forced to rely upon it.

those richie riches who think only their tax cuts and corporate welfare matters [and that the rest of us can just die] will have a reckoning none of them expects.

* BUMP *

Please respond to the poll if you have not already done so.

Thank you.

IMO opinion I think everyone who doesn't work a uneducated job should all get the same pay, even the unemployment but if you want more money, you need a educated job eg. lawyer, doctor, scientist, educator, nurse, etc. If people want more money than what they get on unemployed, get a job. People will always need money for eg car payment, if they are saving up for something they need or want. Save up for emergencies like house maintience.

If the powers that be continue to rework the ecomony (as they have since the 1970s) so there are fewer and fewer jobs of the kind that used to gainfully employ almost all the human population at a level they could do basic things like have a home and food and so on from their own paycheck, then they should institute Universal Basic Income and the people who've reworked the economy for their own phenomenal levels of gain should be paying for it.

problem for us amuuuuricans [rest of the world is more hip than we are to the truth] is that too many tools among us think that they too can join the ranks of the 1%, when, looked at realistically, those naive 99%ers don't really have the requisite native intelligence, social intelligence, social connections and just plain LUCK, that becoming rich REQUIRES WITHOUT EXCEPTION. so as long as those clueless people are in a working majority and continue to stupidly carry the 1%'s water for them and hoping some will eventually "trickle down" to themselves, nothing will change. we need a critical mass of wokeness for any progress at this point. not holding my breath.

I don't think that many of are really that clueless. Most people know that becoming suddenly rich is extremely unlikely. They do hard work for sh!t pay for the very rich because the alternative is to bum on the street. Lots think figurative slavery is better than death.

they don't comprehend that slavery IS a protracted waking death.

I mostly agree with this essay( in theory) . To me, someone who works hard all their life to have a succesful career and someone who slacks off is not the same. I see nothing wrong with people who worked hard and graduated from good universities to earn more than people who slacked off in their youth. Though i know working hard is no guarantee
to get a good job and salary. (also i am not american and getting into a university is much cheaper in my country)

It is also a fact that a system like UBI can be exploited very easily. Too much compassion can be exploited.

I have seen a lot of people who actually pretend to be disabled and homeless so they don't have to work and can get money from people in the streets. They even make their children beg for money in the streets so people will pity them. I am sure some of these people are actually poor but i don't doubt there are many liars and con artists among them.
Laziness and expecting the government to take care of everything certainly doesn't yield good results.

I completely agree that people should be rewarded for hard work but the term "hard work" is very relative. Lots of people who never worked various minimum-wage jobs automatically assume that those jobs are very easy money because those jobs are considered very unrespected cr@p jobs that only lazy teens do while they are not getting drunk & are not in class. The thing is some of those jobs are somewhat skilled & require very hard physical work & most of the people doing them are adults who are older than college students & some of them have college degrees. Some of those people are working a 2nd job or they are working a lot of overtime so just so they can barely live paycheck to paycheck on a very minimalist life style. The federal minimum-wage here in the US is only $7.25 before tax & it can be extremely difficult in some areas to find a two bedroom apartment for under a thousand a month. I'll do some math for you guys
The minimum wage of $7.25(not deducting tax) x 40 hours a week = $290 x 4 weeks in a month = $1160 a month. You add in the cost of other various living expenses like food, utilities, health care costs, transportation(bus fair, Uber, Lyft, owning a car), clothing that you need to wear to go to work or just go outside & that can take a huge chunk out of that $1160 & that is not including the cost of housing itself.

When I was just on SSI & not working, my full SSI was between $600 & $700 a month. The cost of my private health insurance that I needed since no docs in my area would accept the state Medicaid was around $300 each month. That was not counting copays, deductibles, & the cost of seeing my psychiatrist since the insurance did not cover mental. Only reason I could afford that was because I was living with my parents & not paying them rent or paying for my food or utilities when I was not working. When I was not working I was putting in apps for most any place I thought I might could get to & might could do a job & I almost never got an interview. My Voc Rehab counselor was useless & just kept telling me that I needed to keep asserting myself. I would call the companies after submitting my apps & I would get told how they get hundreds of apps & don't have tome to go through them all. When I was working I was working longer hours whenever I was allowed to & I would work 6 days a week sometimes when allowed to so I could have a little extra money & to better myself. I got tired of hearing my mom gripe about how I could be doing better than those jobs. It does not matter if I am capable of doing those better jobs if I am not capable of getting hired for those better jobs due to noone wanting to take a chance on me cuz of my disabilities & having major gaps in my work history. The jobs I had barely paid anything over minimum-wage & I was on my feet doing physical labor the entire time I was on the clock except for two 15 minute breaks. I am VERY WORRIED for the disableds & elderly in this country who barely have any benefits like I did. I know it can be next to impossible for some of them to find employment if they are capable of holding a job. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to live with parents, family, or friends for completely free like I was. This is my biggest reason for supporting a UBI. Some people got a very raw deal in life through no fault of their own & they can not overcome their bad circumstances within this system that is majorly rigged against them.