So, I keep getting this, especially from people of a more centristy persuasion, that negative income tax is better than basic income because it's fiscally smaller.
Yes, on paper, it is. This is because an NIT has the government calculating benefits via a bureaucracy, while a basic income tends to give everyone the basic income whether they need it or not. They think that NIT is better because it costs less, and because "people who don't need it" don't get it.
But for me, that's actually why I dislike NIT. Look, basic income is supposed to be an unconditional grant given as a right of citizenship. The entire point is that no matter what your circumstances, rich or poor, working or not working, whatever, you get this check as a GUARANTEE of a decent life.
I don't want a bureaucracy determining who gets what. I don't want people filling out forms to prove their need. I don't want the government to potentially gatekeep getting aid in other ways like welfare often does by requiring a work requirement, or requiring people to fill out cumbersome paperwork, and needing to sit there waiting for some government bureaucrat to determine whether you "deserve" it or not. No. Again, this is supposed to be a right of citizenship.
My views on this subject actually come out of my ex conservatism. As Ronald Reagan once said, the nine most terrifying words in the english language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Why do conservatives hate government? Because they don't do anything right. They screw up everything they touch. And to some extent, the GOP operates on the basis of making sure it stays that way. So they break government more. They add more requirements to aid. They make the paperwork more cumbersome. They add work requirements. They add drug tests. They set time limits. The entire point is to break these programs so badly that most Americans lose faith in the system, which breeds resentment. When a citizen requires help, they have to fill out complicated forms and get grilled about every aspect of their private life, but then they see someone else, possibly a minority (we all know this is driven by dog whistle politics) who gets this stuff and the resentment begins. "I work SO HARD, why do we have to spend my life working, but they get everything for free?" So, they end up making it even harder. They add more forms, and more requirements, and more hoops to jump through. The entire point of the right is to claim the system is dysfunctional, while making it more dysfunctional, to ensure that public confidence in it remains low and resentment remains high.
And democrats fall for it. The whole concern about fiscal responsibility is a trap. It's intended to get you thinking along the lines of a right winger, where big broad changes that help people are bad, so we need more limited aid that has more requirements so only those who deserve the aid get it. Who "deserves" it? Well, they're always sure to discriminate between those who are deemed to "need" it and fall victim to something "through no fault of their own", but if you say, don't WANT to work, or something like that, you're to sink and swim.
Fiscal responsibility in this sense is an explicitly centrist or right wing framing with an explicit centrist or right wing underlying ideology. it's the worldview that some people deserve aid, and some don't. it's the idea that taxes and government spending should be low so that people can keep more of their own money, that, ya know, they earned, from work, because we all know that they're all jobists who think this way.
Even if they, on paper, think 'gee, but we don't HAVE to put work requirements on it, just fill out a form", they ignore that the right is SALIVATING to add work requirements, and SALIVATING to make the aid harder to claim. So that they can undermine the system, cut spending, push us further to the right, and then claim government doesn't work.
All going NIT does is cede ideological ground to the right, and to those who think that what justifies property rights is labor. Meanwhile, in my view the reason we link property rights to labor is merely to incentivize work and to give people rewards for working. Because if there was no reward, who would work? And yes, to address that criticism of my ideas, yes, of course we need work linked to income to some degree, but that degree is only to the degree that it is necessary to motivate people to work. I don't get all riled up in the morality of work and "earning" something. People end up taking it well beyond its functional necessity into a right of its own. And even a full UBI gives people plenty of room to motivate people to work. Again, because UBI and NIT are functionally the same thing.
Say you earn $50,000 a year. If you have a basic income of $15,000 and a tax rate of 20%, you will get $15,000 and see $10,000 in additional taxes. This will net you an extra $5,000.
With a negative income tax, the same structure can apply. You get $15,000 as a maximum benefit, and for every dollar earned, you lose 20 cents of your benefit. If you make $50,000 a year, you will lose $10,000 in benefits and get $5,000. Gee, what do you know, they're the same thing? Yes, they don't appear to be the same thing fiscally. UBI is "more expensive", because it will tax people and then give the money back while the NIT will rely on bureaucracy to calculate the net benefits, which filters out all of the redundant transfers. Both have the government functionally do the same thing. The reason fiscal conservatives and centrists like NIT more is because it appears to be "smaller government". They hate the idea of the government taxing people. So why have the government tax people and raise trillions in revenue when we can just have a clawback rate of 20%, and phase out the benefits up to $75,000, at which point THEN you'll start paying more taxes? That way, you'll "save money" as those rich people who "dont need it" won't get it, and it will be "cheaper."
Well, again, for me, the point of UBI is, in part, to shift the narrative around government benefits on its head. You see, this NIT stuff sounds good to moderates and fiscal conservatives who like the econo speak of "saving money" and "fiscal conservatism" and also the weirdo left wing moralists who hand wring about the deserving poor, but whose support for the poor is more about superficial morality than about actually meeting their needs. But make no mistake, such people are a bit more conservative than me ideologically. And they seem to like smaller government budgets and pathological government control over peoples' lives.
I don't think bureaucrats SHOULD decide who is worthy or not. I don't think we should have to fill out forms. I don't think we should jump through hoops. I don't think we should have to prove we're looking for work, or not on drugs, or not spending the money on lobster and steak, or whatever weird arbitrary tests conservatives are screaming about this week.
Because welfare is about taxpayers getting their hard earned tax dollars taken away to them and given to someone else, and it's all about need, and it's all about whether they deserve it, and it's all about control if the recipient. If the money isn't "theirs" but the government's, or the taxpayers, then those entities can exert control over individuals who receive aid. hence why we subject people to so much bullcrap. Compare this to a program like social security which has less restrictions because it's seen as "their money."
I want basic income to be "their money". I want the basic income to be an ENTITLEMENT. Something you are entitled to simply because you were born in this country. This basic income is supposed to be a right of citizenship, and NO ONE should have any right to take that away from you. It's like that commercial: "It's my money, and I need it now!" Does it seem a little redundant up the income stack? Sure. Is it more expensive? Sure. But at the end of the day, it's still the same policy. The difference is basic income's true cost is stated up front, while NIT tends to hide a lot of it by cancelling out the redundant transfers before they happen. A basic income might tax you for $10,000 to give you $15,000. A negative income tax will just give you $5,000. The redundancy might seem pointless and a pain in the neck to some people, but this is loaded with the ideological assumptions I stated above. And I, myself, have a lot of ideological assumptions. Because ultimately, I want to flip the script on the subject. I don't want basic income to just be "another welfare program" but something truly transformative.
Also, if we taxed people right, they wouldn't even notice. because we would take the tax right out of one's paycheck like a payroll tax, ideally. Sure, it's there on the pay stub, but you dont actually have to fill out forms or pay anything, it's done automatically. That's how I envision it anyway. Sure, people who declare their income outside of a job might need to keep track of their own finances, but you know what? They could choose to simply pay the government a certain percentage as the money come in to minimize their burden. And then they can square up whatever difference in accounting exists at tax time. The point is, I want people to have access to their basic income no matter what. Even if they're filthy stinking rich. Trust me, that rich person gets a UBI, but they also kinda don't. Because they pay far more in taxes than they're getting. Them getting it is symbolic. They are, too, citizens, and no matter what, they can count on that poverty line income every year. But again, their tax burden will be far in excess of it.
I just wanted to go into this again since I had someone try the whole "but NIT is more efficient and rich people won't get it" thing again. To which I say, "imagine being so progressive you only want to help SOME people." I really wish I could break people out of this welfarism good mindset. I guess to some extent, it happens among more fiscally conservative liberal types, but it's still something I find offputting as fudge. It really as if a lot of liberals primarily support welfare because its the superficially moral thing to do and they don't think about the actual consequences of policy. Or they don't care because they're kinda conservative anyway. I'm just pointing this out.
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