How to Fix Poverty: Write Every Family a Basic Income Check

[NACBA]

In the United States—as in all of the world’s wealthier nations—ending poverty is not a matter of resources. Many economists, including Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin (and former director of the Institute for Research on Poverty) have argued that every developed nation has the financial wherewithal to eradicate poverty. In large part this is because post-industrial productivity has reached the point where to suggest a deficit in resources is laughably disingenuous. And despite the occasional political grandstanding against welfare, there is no policy, ideology or political party that is on the books as pro-starvation, pro-homelessness, pro-death or anti-dignity.

Yet, poverty continues to exist. In the U.S., for example, almost 15 percent of citizens (and almost 20 percent of children) live in poverty. Of those, slightly under 2 percent live on less than $2 per person per day.

The main problem is logistical. The current U.S. welfare systems take in trillions of dollars and provide fairly little utility on a dollar-for-dollar basis. There’s unhappiness on both sides of the political aisle—conservatives harrumph about “welfare queens” and liberals complain about the expensive drug testing required to collect welfare checks, for example. Welfare as it exists today is fragmented to the point of making effective oversight impossible, mired in red tape and inconsistent between cities, states and the federal government. And because of that, in the richest nation in the world, people starve.

http://www.newsweek.com/how-fix-pove...e-check-291583

[Acala]

I'm all for it as long as nobody is forced to fund it that doesn't want to fund it.

[NACBA]

I'm all for it as long as nobody is forced to fund it that doesn't want to fund it.

True--there should be an opt-out

Can we get an opt-out for the Earned Income Tax Credit?

[CaptUSA]

I remember Milton Friedman proposing something like this... I don't see how it could be worse than what we have now.

Although, there would be loads of unintended consequences. You may trigger an inflationary period where prices of staple needs would elevate to meet the new base level. Which would just mean we'd have to keep raising the basic income check.

[erowe1]

The OP is better than what we have now.

Another way to end poverty is to set the poverty rate at $0/year. Then nobody would be living in poverty any more. That 15% of people cited in the OP enjoy higher standards of living that people who were not considered poor 100 years ago.

[ILUVRP]

i think that is what they have been doing for the banksters already .

[Danke]

I'm all for it as long as nobody is forced to fund it that doesn't want to fund it.

Silly, it will be government money, not yours.

[oyarde]

End it all .Forever .

[Ronin Truth]

How to fix government: Fire 'em all.

[Origanalist]

Lol, another "fix".

[Tod]

You get more of what you subsidize.

[GunnyFreedom]

Well, as absurd as it sounds, if they just had to inflate the currency it really would make more sense to pour it on the roots than the treetops. Of course inflating the currency was a bad idea to begin with.

Not that any of this nonsense makes any sense, but it really is nanny-government that is holding people in poverty, in so many ways. I will allow that "cutting everyone a check" would be better than what we have now, simply because you would end up spending the same money and eliminate billions of dollars worth of bureaucracy. That is not to say that it would be good, of course, but to demonstrate that what is going on now is really pretty awful. The state has become a cancer on the poor and bred them into dependence. With "just a check" at least the cattle will be free range instead of locked in a government thinkbox. If that makes sense.

Yet the ultimate solution is not wealth redistribution or socialism or any such thing, the ultimate solution is a monetary base that is fixed and fair to everyone, and a rollback of the state which is blocking, harassing, and often preventing people from supporting themselves on their own initiatives. You will do more to increase the prosperity and condition of the poor, to stop making it difficult for money to find it's way into their communities. Regulatory overreach, the government works to stop trade more than enable it. This power affects the poor the most, not only because it keeps the poor from rising up and sharing the wealth but also because it makes all the goods cost more from over-obsessive legal and compliance costs.

It's the nanygov redistribution and regulatory programs that are creating a lot of the conditions we see today.