Hacker News Reader

Comment by thedevil | Hacker News Reader

I have the same concern. I've heard arguments, but none that adequately address the issue.

While I'm a fan of the idea of adopting basic income eventually, I don't see how we can fund it now without serious negative consequences.

Unfortunately the studies I've read about here on HN (including this one I'm guessing) seem to only address the positive side without actually comparing costs vs benefits.

View on HN

Every time I do the math for BI people I never get upvotes, so it never gets attention. Yes, one day in the far future basic income will work, but right now even assuming nobody that is currently working will stop working, it will cost a _ton_ of money. Especially from the top part of the tax bracket.

Great! That's the point. People in my tax bracket should be paying vastly more in taxes.

People who lobby for basic income certainly shouldn't pussyfoot around the notion that it's fundamentally a redistributive tax.

My goal is to eliminate poverty for US citizens who don't insist on living in extremely high cost areas. Secondary goals are to enable the poor to refuse to do bullshit jobs, and undermine the deeply-held notion that wage work is ennobling.

The only way to achieve such redistribution is now, as it has always been, to tax rich people like me.

Hey I'm there with you. I'd rather people in the 1% pay 80% taxes instead of 40% taxes, but the reality is that very, very, very few people in the 1% think like we do, and a good number people in the upper middle class and middle class are going to be worse off as well. It's obviously the long term solution, but it's not politically palatable yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com