I'm not an economist, a policy expert on fiscal and social matters or even someone you should listen to. I'm just a guy with an opinion. OK, maybe more than one opinion but for the sake of this post today I'm talking about one thing.
The idea of a basic universal income has been kicking around for a while now and even tried out to some small degree as pilot programs and interesting experiments in social policy. Let me give you my ill informed opinion on the subject.
I say do it. And I say go all in while we're at it. Without facts and figures or even an idea on how it would all work out, allow me to strip the idea down to the basics as I see it. Certainly I will be missing things and possibly even large things but that means a thorough investigation by qualified people is needed.
This is what I propose, everyone over the age of 18 gets a guaranteed monthly payment, let's say $1200 a month. It doesn't matter if you work or not, here's $1200. If you earn over say $150,000 a year you're not getting the money. To help balance out the ledger, we remove EI, Child Tax Benefit, CPP, and probably most types of social welfare that are as diverse and cumbersome as this great country is. I don't how that all washes out but I would wager it's not as far off as some might believe. Maybe, like CPP, the employees make contributions to the system that funnels into an investment fund to help pay for it over the long run. A social investment and dividend if you will.
To my thinking this is what I see:
- Reduction is bureaucracy, both the cost associated with running multiple programs and the headaches in dealing with it on multiple levels
- Reducing, if not eliminating the stigma and shame that many people must feel when forced to deal with essentially begging for money. Justifying to some drone the reason why you lost your job or why you can't afford to feed your kids, as if that wasn't enough of an issue already. Why are we compounding it? This seems much more dignified
- An injection of capital into the economy
- An injection of capital into the social fabric of our society
- Peace of mind
I know opponents will say how do you pay for it and how about people milking the system, rewarding lazy people and so on. Well, let me say this about that: You pay for it by paying for it. If we decide as a society that we feel like this is the right thing to do, to help each other out and to restore some dignity to peoples lives then we will figure out a way to make it work. A path will become clear once you decide on the destination.
There will always be a percentage of society that will take advantage of or milk a system to their own benefit. It doesn't matter what you have in place. So that's a wash as far as I'm concerned. This isn't about crib to grave socialism, which in some ways we already have...it's about making the system more efficient and actually doing some good. The quagmire of programs can be made more user friendly and manageable if we simply move in that direction.
Alarmists amongst you will decry the end of life as we know it, claim the communists have taken over and tear our country into two. Much like people argued when universal healthcare came in. You know what? We're still here and envied around the world my many that think we finally got something right. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But I don't worry about having to go to the hospital for a kidney stone and declaring bankruptcy after the fact because of it. So that's not bad, right? Maybe, just maybe we are ready for a huge shift...a momentous change in our lives.
We are already paying money in vast sums to people but I think we do so inefficiently. And we do so while tearing down dignity. The system can be better. We can be better. I'd truly like to see a cost comparison study. A full account of the ramifications. Pros and cons. But please, strip out the political double talk and ideological clap trap. I'll call you out for it and may even show you the business end of a 2 by 4.
You want to hear something funny? Coming out of high school, Ayn Rand and small "c" conservatism as my political stripe and an entrepreneurial bent already being fomented you wouldn't think I would have turned into a bleeding heart liberal as I have. I've always had a social conscience and my conservatism stemmed from the idea that laissez faire was the way to go for the world. Over time though I have come to think as I do now. We are our brothers keepers and sometimes people can't pull themselves up and in the end, right is right. So while I do believe in the individual reigning supreme we must consider this within the context of humanity....we all share this little blue dot in space.
Ciao
D
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