Discussing Biden's "SOTU" and the republican response to it

 So, Biden, basically got around to finally giving what amounts to a "State of the Union" address last night. I'm going to unpack this in two ways. First, I'll give a relatively unbiased approach to it, and then I'll give you my actual unfiltered opinion, as I often love doing.

My "unbiased" opinion of Biden's speech

First of all, from a more objective perspective, it was a good speech, I give it a 8/10. He made good arguments for what appear to be progressive policies. I think that coming off of the nightmare that was the Trump administration (hey, "objective" for me means I'm not taking a dump on the guy every 5 minutes because he isn't for UBI, that doesn't mean I have to be fair to Trump), Biden's speech was a bit of a breath of fresh air. He's handling COVID, he pitched his infrastructure and childcare programs, and it resonated really well. He appealed somewhat to progressives, who liked Bernie, he appealed to Trumpers, who wanted economic nationalism and wanna beat China, he appealed to mainstream liberals. I would even argue he had "morning in America" vibes to make a Reagan callback here. Like a new leaf was turning in this country where we invest in our futures. He promised jobs, he promised prosperity, he promised a return to normalcy, and pitched a bunch of nice sounding plans to get us there. After this, I don't think that republicans have much to say, and I would argue this was so good it could potentially stave off a defeat in 2022. 

My biased opinion of Biden's speech

Now that I've said all the good things about Biden, let me take a minute to shower before continuing with my own opinion. 

*shower noises in background, with a faint sobbing that's barely audible*

Okay, we good? We good. Now my actual opinion. The public might like his speech (although to be fair democrats are oversampled here). I mean, I can see why. Most people in this country, do not have a firm ideology in my opinion that is unique to themselves. Most people seem to be in a boat of wanting something, but they don't know what it is. And it's up to whatever people end up running to sell it to them. In 2016, people bought into Trump's lies, and now they're clamoring for change as we move away from the Trump era, and Biden resonates.

However, as someone with a unique, well informed ideology that exists outside of the 2 party system, and have already looked at Biden's policies, while Biden's rhetoric seemed appealing, it was just that, rhetoric. As I already covered on this blog, his plans aren't that grand. They amount to a bunch of band aid fixes. People make Biden out to be the new FDR, but let's be honest, Bernie is equivalent to FDR on policy and ideology, Biden is like...half as good as that, so your standard democratic politician pushed to pretend to be FDR. His plans are okay, but they could be so much better. His stimulus could've been a UBI. His infrastructure plan is moderate, falling way short of as green new deal, although not being a green new dealer, I'm okay with that. Still, he sold it like it was, going on about JERBS JERBS JERBS! Here's the thing. It's not gonna end poverty, it's not gonna give a job to everyone. These jobs will be in specific locations, and be good for specific types of people looking for specific types of careers, the logistics of jobs programs never really work well, and should really only be done to do stuff. His free college plan was underwhelming, as discussed, it's really only 2 years of community college, not 4 years of college, he got 4 years of extra school by now having 3-4 year olds go to preK, this further curtailing that small part of freedom children have before they're forced into the education system and then work force (yeah, I'm cynical from my anti work perspective, get'em while they're young, m i rite?). And yeah. Biden's actual plans, as compelling as they sounded in this speech with all of this rhetoric of staying ahead of China (which is a valid concern, don't get me wrong), just don't seem to really live up to the hype. That's the problem with Biden here. He's hitting the right notes rhetorically on paper, but in reality he's selling a fairly incrementalist approach to policy that I don't believe will make an impact in peoples' lives.

Now, before I get jumped on, I know people are gonna go on about how vaccines are ground breaking and their $1400 stimulus checks. Okay, you realize I support giving you guys $1100 EVERY MONTH right? And affordable healthcare, something Biden barely touched. And full four year college for anyone who wants it, where you can major in any career you want, and live the life you want. Sky is the limit. And I have ways to pay for all of these things, and I discussed them on this blog. I'm sorry, but given my proposals, consider me underwhelmed by Biden here. He's not doing bad, but he could be doing better. Biden runs on watered down incremental ideas that should've been done a long time ago.

Also, on vaccines. Yeah, that's what happens when you get a sane leader in the white house. Anyone who isn't an idiot, or a republican, and Trump was both, could've gotten this done. I know Americans tend to get really hyped by the new shiniest thing and tend to fall for rhetoric with no substance, and I know that people are happy to just have someone who isn't a narcissistic freaking moron at this point, but yeah. That's how low the bar is, competence. Biden makes people feel safe. Like everything is okay, because the adults are in charge now. And he's cashing in on it. The bar is so low, that simply being competent is enough to get you heralded as the next FDR. But Biden isn't FDR, bernie is, and we need to evolve past 1930s ideologies anyway. 

So, what of the republican response?

Tim Scott gave the response to Biden's speech. And in my honest opinion, it was awful. He started out with a lot of weird religious pandering with references to Chik Fil A (freaking republicans, m i rite?), before going on about how kids are losing time at school and how we should've opened up ages ago because "science says it's safe" (it's not). He's painting this very mild infrastructure bill the way I would frame a full green new deal, going on about how wasteful it is and how it's big government at its worst, but really, at those spending levels, his plan should be good, again, I think the jobs aspect of this plan seems very overemphasized. And then we get to "that". You know, the whole reason they chose a black guy to give this speech. He started going on about how racist liberals are, and how he wanted to work with them, but they wouldn't let him. Heck, that's the big pitch of this entire speech. Whaaa liberals are so mean they won't work with us. Yeah, because you republicans are useless, don't operate in good faith, and won't work with anyone. Biden tries too darned hard as it is to work with the GOP honestly, and im sick of sell outs like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin ruining everything. We shouldn't even try. Because no matter what we do they're gonna make the same smears against us. We should just do what we want, and drag the GOP kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And honestly, I think we could do it. But I digress for now. But yeah, from there he went on about how we're not a racist country, after spending so much time going on about racial divisions, and starts defending the voter suppression laws of states like Georgia, and yeah, it's a mess. It's a total mess.

The GOP is ideologically bankrupt. I gave Biden an earful here for being vapid, but the GOP is even more vapid. They have no argument. That's my takeaway from this. All they have is lies, misinformation, dishonest framing of issues, and concern trolling. And that's precisely why I talk so little about republicans on this blog. They aren't even worth my time. They have nothing. NOTHING. Even Biden's anemic vision of the future tramples all over the best republican ideas. 

Wanna know what you get when you vote republican? You get morons like Trump. And don't even get me started on republicans not being racist, Senator Scott, your team has been playing paddy cakes with white supremecists for the past four years. That's why you get slurred by the left for being a sell out. A lot of people are treating Trump as the scapegoat and trying to jettison him while getting rid of the brand, but Trump IS the GOP. He's the natural consequence of the GOP's culture. The GOP OWNS Trumpism, for better or for worse. If they didn't have Trump, some other tea party crazy would take his place. Before that, they had Bush. I notice the democrats are rehabilitating Bush now, which is sickening in and of itself, but the Bush administration cut taxes unnecessarily, doubled the national debt, and got us into wars we never should've been involved in. Heck one of Biden's glowing accomplishments this year is going to be finally getting out of the mess that Bush got us in to 20 years ago. He left office in disgrace, with insanely low popularity ratings. But now he's being treated as a good old boy. Before that, we had the other Bush, he was...okayish. I guess. Basically a 3rd Reagan term but slightly more moderate. And before that, Reagan, the dude who cut taxes irresponsibly, tripled the deficit without getting us anything out of it, destroyed the new deal's legacy, and ignored the AIDS crisis (republicans tend to ignore a lot of infectious diseases don't they?). Let's face it, the GOP is crap, it's been crap for a while. The last decent republican in the white house was maybe Ford. The republican brand is garbage, their legacy is garbage, and they had nothing. 

Really, if the democrats would shed identity politics, double down on this new progressive direction and back it up with actual policies that match it, and actually take the GOP to the cleaners, they would never recover until they started sounding a lot like Biden does right now. The only thing keeping the GOP viable is the democrats' own incompetence and unwillingness to rise to the challenges of modern politics. 

I'm sure some MAGA heads are gonna act like Scott's speech was good, but it really wasn't. I mean, I guess it was better than "breadbags on shoes", but still. Not great. Kinda garbage. The GOP has nothing.

SHOCKER! Racial framing of progressive issues undermines support relative to class framing

 So, Kyle Kulinski of secular talk covered this recently, and since it's something I've talked about on this blog before, I felt like I should discuss it briefly. Essentially, he covered a study by students at Yale looking at public attitudes toward progressive issues, with three different forms of framing. They looked at class framing, racial framing, and class+race framing, and while the results did not seem particularly statistically significant, they did find a fairly large bump in support toward the class only framing of issues. Racial and race+class framing seemed fairly close. The results varied across subgroups, with some racial groups responding a bit more favorably to racial framing relative to the status quo, but not really enough to justify using it.

When I look at this stuff, I only really have two words: "no crap." I mean, really. We have a history of racial politics in this country being used to divide and conquer the country. Racial issues are some of the most toxic and divisive issues we face, and it seems to just be a way to turn the lower classes on against themselves in order to prevent real change. Even I tend to feel a lot more alienated when issues I advocate for and champion on this sub are framed in a racial way. I don't mind the class + race framing myself much, as I am a bit of a social leftie even on those issues, but I'm a sane moderate leftie, not a SJW. Those politics have a place, but they shouldn't dominate the discussion. But often times race does. Social progressives love to talk about forgiving black student loans for example, while not forgiving white student loans because it's a way to solve racial equality. I've seen people talking about distributing covid vaccinations to minorities first because of privilege based politics. I've seen people equating UBI with reparations. It just baffles me. As an ex conservative, it is literally the most cringey way to sell an issue, and of course you're causing a lot of division and sparking a race war doing it.

I'm not even sure if this stuff is in good faith. As I keep saying I keep feeling like the democrats are explicitly trying to derail and sabotage a broader sense of class politics by pushing this racial stuff and appealing to moderate Bush and Romney supporting republicans to avoid running on progressivism. I mean, there's no real reason to frame issues like this. I'd argue the democratic obsession with doing so is a huge reason our politics are in the toilet for the past 6 years or so. They could've done the class framing in 2016 with Bernie Sanders. They opted for the identity framing with HRC and people flocked to the openly racist demagogue instead. They could've gone with Bernie or alternatively, Andrew Yang, who seemed fairly popular with some truck drivers in Iowa (despite low actual vote totals) but instead we ended up with a Biden/Harris ticket. And Trump almost won again. 

I'll be getting to Biden's speech and the republican counter response later to make my points a bit more well defined here, but really. I really don't know why democrats keep insisting on this specific framing of politics. It's not 1992 any more. People want new bold ideas (or at least what appear to be new and bold ideas, will get to that later). If they really tried, they could crush republicans like a bug and they would never be able to win an election again until they reinvent themselves. Really, I believe that. The democrats' greatest enemy is themselves to be perfectly honest.

Examining Biden's "families plan"

 So, Biden has unveiled a more final draft of his families plan, which I previously looked at, but in a much more broad way. 

It's going to be $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years, or $180 billion a year. That's not a massive amount. Idk why people insist on measuring "plans" in 10 year increments, it just makes them sound big and scary and ERMAHGERD THE FEDERAL BUDGET IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE $4 TRILLION A YEAR HOW CAN YOU PAY FOR THIS?! It's kind of like when the right points out the unfunded liabilities of social security are like $75 trillion but that's over 50 years or something. I mean, it's hacky, it's dishonest, it's just a right wing trick to scare people.

Say it with me, $180 billion...a year. That's how much this plan is.

To break it down $80 billion a year in in tax cuts to the middle class. This is fine if you're a fiscal conservative but given my UBI approach, yeah, it's more money in their pocket, but UBI would likely have a similar effect while ending poverty.

So that's actually $100 billion a year of...stuff.

$22.5 billion a year is for paid family leave. While this is nice and I can't argue with that price tag, it is but a band aid within the jobist paradigm. 

Another $22.5 billion a year is for subsidies for childcare. Subsidize daycare so the parents can work. Again, makes sense within the jobist paradigm, but I'm pretty sure if we had UBI people could just take care of their kids.

Like, let me just do a tangent into how stupid GDP is. If a mother takes care of her kids and doesn't go to work, their labor is essentially "worthless" from a capitalist perspective. However, if a woman gets a job rather than takes care of her kids, well, that improves GDP. And if the woman pays someone else to take care of her kids, that's yet another job. JERBS! That's what our economic productivity statistics measure. How much paid work is being done. It doesn't matter if the mother could've easily been given a UBI and stayed home and took care of her own kids while the daycare worker could've gotten another job doing something else, we tend to valorize something because it's a job, and if it isn't, it's worthless. That's essentially an argument made by feminists for UBI in the first place btw. UBI recognizes that most people actually do unpaid work in the economy and this is severely underappreciated. But I digress.

I know, I know, I'm being kind of unfair to Biden here. Biden's plan is....interesting. It's accomplishing some significant goals very cheaply, and while they are baid aid goals that were low on my own personal priorities list, they are still nice. 

But yeah, it seems like this plan would heavily subsidize childcare and make it affordable, similar to the medicare extra healthcare plan I covered. 

$20 billion will go to universal preK. Again, if this could be done this cheaply, I don't see why we didn't do this a long time ago. These are significant goals to be done quite cheaply.

And finally, this is where we get to one of my medium priorities: $11 billion a year on free community college. I'm sorry, what? This is actually a pretty bad bill. Like, it's a band aid. Community college for 2 years is something, but Bernie wanted free four year schools, and given how many times I hear people complaining in healthcare debates about how we need all of these expansive doctor salaries because they have student debt, we should be doing more. I mean, really, education should be free. At least four years, if not longer. And student debt should be forgiven. 

Apparently the plan also covers things like Pell grants, other low income grants, and money for HBCUs. These are band aids. Tiny, tiny, band aids. I had a pell grant once. It was a drop in the bucket. Doubling the amount doesn't solve the problem. It's a symbolic gesture. And idk why (actually I do, idpol) there's so much focus on HBCUs and the like. It just seems like blatant pandering to the black community while being as vapid as everything else proposed here. 

I mean, don't get me wrong, this plan does some good things. Paid family leave, universal preK, and subsidized childcare are all something. And I support free college in theory, I just think this plan is a band aid.

But that's the problem I have with Biden. I mean, the dude is doing more than I thought he would, but these are band aids. As he said before he was elected, "nothing will fundamentally change." 

Even worse the article fears that even this might be too extreme and that he might not be able to pass even this. It's mentioned the republicans counteroffered a $57 billion a year plan, and that would likely be more anemic.

This is why I don't like centrist democrats. They compromise up front and then they water it down from there. Like, you could argue even I compromise sometimes, but I do stuff like go from medicare for all, to medicare for all...who want it. Speaking of healthcare, the article mentioned healthcare isn't even mentioned here, outside of a $20 billion a year plan to make some premium reductions from the ACA era permanent. Where's the public option, Joe? Where's the public option?

I know centrists and neolibs will swoon over this, but yeah, I'm not impressed. Then again as I keep saying liberals are the real conservatives these days, with the right being full on regressive. They just are satisfied to tinker at the edges and they're they're so wonderful because they passed a couple $20 billion plans.

*sigh*...freaking libs...

Could we fund medicare for all with my old UBI numbers?

 A thought occurred to me. While I do not desire to rerun the numbers of the entire federal budget given how messed up 2020 and 2021 are when it comes to the federal budget, I did do broader reform of the federal tax system in my early versions of UBI. I sought to replace the entire tax system with a 43.5% flat tax or so, and I just thought, gee, you know what? I wonder if I could fund medicare for all with it? Well, Medicare for all would add a 11.5% tax burden to that roughly 43.5% rate, bringing it up to like 55% or so. And then the rich pay 14% on local taxes, which would bring their rate up to 69%.

In theory this could work, although it would leave us little room to fund other things like free college, infrastructure, etc. There are also some issues with this. First of all, everyone would have a 55%+ flat tax imposed on them to make this work. That is an insane amount of money. While it could theoretically work similarly to Milton Friedman's 50% clawback mechanism on income in his NIT plans, I would ideally like to keep the marginal tax rate below 50% on most. Another issue is these numbers might not be viable any more. First of all these numbers came from the relatively fiscally responsible year of 2016. Obama was in office, we had sane taxing and spending policies, and we didnt have orange morons cutting taxes just because while raising defense spending through the roof. We also havent been spending trillions of dollars like the past 2 fiscal years because of the COVID depression and fallout from it. And finally, my UBI plan back then was $12,000/$4000. I bumped it up more, and that might raise the rate again. 

Also did I mention it shifted a massive amount of the burden to the lower and middle classes? That's why it's so feasible, it's a flat rate. The poor and middle class pick up the slack of the upper class to keep the rich's taxes below the laffer curve rate.

If we go with tax rates minus healthcare, on a purely federal level, we got the bottom quintile paying 21.5% with UBI, or, excluding income tax refunds, 33.1%. And with medicare extra they'd probably not pay for healthcare. The middle quintile would be paying 34%. And that's the REAL middle class (news flash, people who make 6 figures arent middle class as they're by definition not in the middle). Medicare extra for all could raise their rates probably to around the upper 30s or 40%, but if they rejected it they would have to pay employer based coverage anyway, so I'm not seeing why it should be counted. 

The rich would pay 53.3% in federal taxes, which would amount to same rough rate they would pay with a flat UBI tax and medicare for all. With local taxes it would amount to 67%. And I'm guessing most of them would get whatever insurance they wanted. 

So that said, I think my new plan is better? Sure, we could keep the rich's rates stagnant while getting medicare for all, but it would amount to everyone else paying more. Much more. Like 67%+ more. 

Once again I think my shift toward medicare extra for all, and funding UBI without reforming the entire tax system to a flat tax, are probably for the best. 

My experience with the COVID vaccine

 So, yesterday, I got my second shot of the Moderna vaccine and am now fully vaccinated. I decided it might be good to discuss vaccination as theres a lot of misinformation out there about it.

I'm very much in favor of vaccination. It's how to prevent diseases. And regardless of what side effects the vaccine has, it is worth it to get the vaccine because it's better and far less deadly than actual COVID. 

However, I'm going to be honest. The vaccination process isn't always sunshine and rainbows.

The first shot wasn't bad. I barely felt the needle go on, and then I went home. At night, around 12 hours later, I started noticing my arm felt sore. It got worse as the night went on, and I could not sleep on the side where I got the shot. It felt like I was punched in the arm, HARD. But then it went away after a few days.

A month later, I got the second shot. I'm still recovering from that one. This time I felt the needle a little but I was largely distracted due to talking to the person giving it. I went home, and I started noticing around 6 hours later that my arm was sore. I tried putting ice on it, as this was recommended at the vaccination site, but that just made it worse. 

This shot...hit a lot harder. The last time the only symptom I had was that my arm hurt. This time overnight, I started feeling weird. Like, I was cold, despite it being warm in the room I was in objectively. When I woke up the next morning...I felt like death. Here's the thing, the second shot tend to evoke a much stronger immune response. You know how you feel when you have a really bad cold and you're just so tired and out of it and don't want to do anything? That's how I felt most of today. That's the immune response. My body is fighting the virus, or more accurately, the proteins the virus creates since Moderna is a mRNA vaccine. I have no other symptoms of disease, I just felt very tired, had fever, chills, etc. I also had a splitting headache every time I got up. 

It's necessary though. Like, if the vaccine is this bad, imagine getting COVID. Not only would my immune system be that bad but I would suffer this disease that could make it where I suffocate to death. And if I recover my organs would be so eviscerated I would die or suffer from that. COVID is no joke people, get your friggin vaccines. I know I'm sounding critical of the vaccine, but I'm really just stating my experiences. Yes, I experienced side effects, as will many of you. But it's still better than getting the virus. I'd take one day sidelines over the risk of a disease that lingers for weeks, potentially kills me, and if it doesn't the effects could be with me for months. As a precaution though, I would recommend preparing a sick day if possible when you get the second shot. That's the rough one. 

The mess that is the democratic party

 So, this has been a topic I've been addressing on this blog from the get go in 2016 but given my more recent evolutions, I feel like I can take a more independent take on it. After all, I'm not really a demsoc or hardcore Bernie-stan. I just sided with them over the neoliberal wing of the party. I'm actually closest to the Yang gang, which is distinct from both branches of the democratic party. And I'm critical of both sides at this point.

The issues with the centrist wing

The centrist wing of the democratic party...is trash. As someone who witnessed the evolution of the Bernie wing over time, and has long sided with them, the centrist wing deserves all of the criticism it gets. 

Here's the thing. These people are no longer the party of FDR. They haven't been since 1992 with the election of Bill Clinton. They have a long history of fighting the left, and undermining them at every turn, going back to at least the late 60s/early 70s. They are completely bought out by corporations and can't be trusted at anything. They seem to act as a buffer against change, and seem more interested in winning  moderate suburbanites and appealing to minorities with identity politics to represent the economic changes we need. They remind me of a hybrid of the republican and democratic parties I grew up with on economics, along with the worst of the democrats on social issues. They're very unattractive, and while we might get a few compromises with them after trying to break their arm twisting it to pass progressive legislation, they seem to essentially be trying to stonewall change as much as humanly possible. As I said, they're essentially conservative, in the sense that they seem more focused on preserving institutions than changing them. 

There seems to be an age divide in the democratic party and most of these guys are older, gen X or boomers. These guys' politics is represented by people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the idea of anything left of that is foreign and even scary. Part of the reason for this is because they're older and older people tend to benefit from the status quo. Part of this is because this generation of democrats was shellshocked by defeats when they were young and they just grew into a conservative environment and accepted it.

Still, this isn't an excuse. The democrats could bring in new energy into the party, but choose not to. They are actively choosing the moderate path. Parties, to some extent, choose what demographics to market to and appeal to, and they're actively choosing POC (in a vapid way) and suburban moderates. Here in PA, they said "for every working class voter we lose in the middle of the state we'll pick up to moderate republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia." They're choosing to abandon working class voters to Trump in order to appeal to the professional class. Because that's their brand. So while much of the rust belt sinks into MAGA country, they pick up the suburbs in addition to the urban cores they already own. It's a really cynical strategy that leads to an incoherent political ideology/identity, but it works on a pure electoral level. But it also means the left is locked out for a generation. I want to emphasize, these guys are choosing this. Because it is what they are comfortable with and it satisfies their corporate donors.

The issues with the Bernie wing

Enter Bernie Sanders. Bernie represented a much more organic, and less forced approach to progressive politics. America is facing huge economic challenges. A seemingly perpetual jobs crisis, a healthcare crisis, a climate crisis, a student debt crisis, a poverty crisis, and Bernie is a good faith attempt at solving those problems. I hitched my wagon to him in 2016, because, well, he was the option that best represented me at the time. He was the one who wanted to solve the problems, and while he didn't always do so in the ways I would do so, he was the guy who wanted to move the overton window in that direction. That said, I have nothing but respect for Bernie himself. Any disagreements are a respectful disagreement of philosophy. 

However, as we know, the neoliberals screwed him in 2016, and the Bernie base has been bitter ever since. And since then, they've largely radicalized. Many well meaning progressives have turned into hardcore social democrats and even socialists over the past several years. And in 2020, they were willing to fight for their values. 

Now, given the disposition of the neoliberal wing of the party, to some extent, I can't blame them. I can be just as brutally purity testy as they are. But, sometimes they go too far. The thing is, these guys have radicalized into a certain set of values since 2016, and are a lot more....strict in their adherence to them.

Take medicare for all. They want single payer healthcare, period. Until recently, I did too. The reasoning behind this is that anything less is an attempt by the centrist wing of the party to preserve the private system at the behest of the insurance industry. Given their purposes, I can't blame them for thinking this. Many candidates (see: Kamala Harris, for example), had a "hello fellow kids, I also support universal healthcare" approach to the issue, while their approaches were bait and switch. Now, Bernie has an excellent single payer system, but it IS expensive, and as demonstrated recently it may not be a universal positive. Depending on the rest of your platform, it might be good, but it might not. I made a conscious choice to reject it for cheaper alternatives due to my fixation on UBI. Either I support a full UBI with a public option, or a partial UBI with M4A. 

But that's kind of where I would start to have issues with these guys. They consider anything less than supporting their specific platform as selling out, regardless of intentions. They act like they have a monopoly on all policy discussions and that any deviation from their approved platform is bad. My platform on healthcare is closest to the Buttigieg model currently, and while I understand some apprehension around it, and around Buttigieg, given the hacky right wing arguments he was making for that approach, honestly, it really is a "glide path to medicare for all" as he put it. It is a more incremental approach to accomplish that long term, and is far more progressive than most candidates' proposals now that I dug into the details to see how it works. Is it perfect? No. But given the budget I'm willing to spend on the issue, it's probably the best way to go about it. 

But that wouldn't be enough for the Bernie supporters. Heck, being in the Yang lane of the party, which has a distinct ideology but is still arguably very progressive, my camp would consistently fail Bernie stan purity tests on a variety of issues. 

On UBI, I've heard hacky and dishonest arguments about "destroying welfare" and "rent would spiral out of control" and even stuff about how it's a "right wing trojan horse". I even hear arguments about how it would stop us from achieving true socialism. That's the thing. The Bernie movement has evolved into socialism to some extent. Bernie himself is pushing social democracy, but his most hardcore supporters want literal socialism. While I've heard some claim they could be for UBI under the right circumstances, they make crazy, unrealistic demands about wanting $3000 a month or something like that, claiming a poverty line UBI isn't enough. As I demonstrated, that's a pipe dream. Heck, I basically established I can't even do $1k a month if we implement medicare for all. That's kind of the core flaw with the Bernie approach. Everything is expensive, with these crazy unrealistic solutions. Bernie himself doesn't have this issue as much, his policies are rock solid, but like me he makes specific policy choices given his own budgeting that I don't agree with (like a jobs guarantee over UBI). But his supporters are becoming unrealistic and rigid.

Being more in the Yang lane ideologically, I get these complaints all the time. Yang doesn't support a green new deal, therefore he's bad. He supports a flawed UBI plan, bad. Public option that isn't even outlined policy wise, bad. No minimum wage or free college, bad. Even if his platform is, on paper, as radical as Bernie's, as I've discussed before, because it isn't Bernie's, it's bad.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't real criticisms of Yang. I dunk on him too at times, and even voted for Bernie over him, in part because Yang's platform was so anemic on important issues at times. Some criticisms are legitimate. I wish Yang had more details to his public option plan and didn't push that article full of incremental fixes that read like a conservative healthcare plan. I wish his UBI plan made different choices at times. And I do think yang should support free college, etc. Yang isn't perfect. I might agree with Yang broadly on ideological issues, but his actual policies need work.

Still, I at least try to be charitable to Yang. I believe he's progressive and means well and wants to accomplish change. But his change isn't always Bernie's change. And that isn't always a bad thing. Bernie's ideas are stuck in the 20th century, and he sounds like FDR's second bill of rights in practice. Which is fine, that is a nice ideology to some extent. But it's not how I would always do things and I'm beginning to resent being crapped on simply over some legitimate differences. No I'm not a socialist. Yes, I do like UBI, yes, I prefer UBI over many of Bernie's specific goals. Bernie might do a lot of great things, but he's still a jobist social democrat who supports a forced participation economy, just a more just one. He's definitely an improvement over the neolibs but that doesn't mean I always agree.

Conclusion

That said, the democratic party's a mess. As I said after the election, I'm beginning to feel like I don't fit in any where. I have a deep dislike and a deep distrust of the centrist wing of the democratic party and believe they operate in bad faith. They aren't there to change things, but to preserve them. I believe the Bernie wing, however, has gotten too radical and my ideology just doesn't align with them.

The fact is, I established my belief system years before Bernie hit the scene. I simply liked Bernie pushing the overton window to make my goals more feasible. But at this point his movement is looking like the tea party in all the wrong ways where everything but their version of politics is bad and is a sell out. Bernie has a lot of good ideas. But I do have some philosophical differences. I do prefer a UBI over a higher minimum wage or expansive jobs program. In tandem with that, while I agree with the spirit of medicare for all, I am starting to believe a public option is better as it would be more affordable and accomplish similar goals while being more affordable and less disruptive. 

Honestly, I'm becoming Andrew Yang, if Yang had a better grasp on policy. My top priorities are near identical to Yang. I just have more robust proposals. I'd consider running for office if I wasn't such an autist (and I do not mean this in a derogatory way, I'm literally autistic) with such low social stamina and such an unlikable personality. Or alternatively maybe I was Yang all along, before Yang was Yang. Maybe Yang is outofplatoscave2017 or something. But, being in that minority wing of the party, we tend to have an ideology outside of the purview of most democrats. While I tend to respect the Berniecrats more and am more charitable to them, I don't really jive with either at this point.

The downsides of medicare extra for all, and rethinking single payer

 You know, I'm really conflicted on this. I really would like to have medicare for all. I just don't know how to implement it affordably given my UBI aspirations. And while medicare extra for all seems to shift costs to the private sector, that's not always a good thing. So let's look more deeply into medicare extra for all and see what the downsides and poison pills are to this plan.

The downside of public options

Public options are a popular compromise among more center leaning democrats. Biden ran on a public option as an alternative to medicare for all, as did many other centrists. Buttigieg's "medicare for all who want it" uses almost the exact same framework as medicare extra. These plans are sold on a low of flowery language. That they preserve "choice", and that medicare for all would "raise taxes on the middle class" (ignoring, those taxes, you know, replace insurance premiums). I mean, the reason I've been so turned off of these plans over the years is because they seem like thinly veiled and dishonest attempts to keep the private system around, flaws and all. I've supported medicare for all because I believed a fully public system would eliminate the problems with the private system.

I'm really only changing my mind because of the price of UBI here, and how laffer curves work. Later I'll be looking at an important question, what's the difference between a tax and a premium? But for now, let's look at how medicare extra for all, actually impacts people.

Medicare extra for all would aggressively enroll the uninsured and people on other forms of public assistance like medicaid and chip onto it. It would basically be like medicare, but expanded to cover dental, vision, hearing, and reproductive healthcare.

How much it costs depends on income. Someone who is below 138% of the poverty line, ie, most people on basic income, would simply get free healthcare. That said, medicare extra for all would technically accomplish my indepentarian goals of complementing healthcare along side basic income, ensuring people can get healthcare without being forced into the employment system. 

However, for those who do work, and earn more money, the plan is less...good. Premiums can range from 0% for below 138% of the poverty line to 9% of income at 400% of the poverty line. That said, someone who is at 400% of the poverty line earning $51,520 a year would be paying $4,636.80 in health insurance premiums. That's $386.40 a month. For reference, the average adult currently pays $456 a month. I guess this is an improvement especially given this is above average income, but still. Moreover, there is "cost sharing" to consider. Copays, deductibles, etc. While people on low incomes are 100% covered, by the time one hits 400% of the poverty line, we're talking paying out 20% of medical costs. This is better than the current 30%, people pay, but still. If you get a bill for a $2000 MRI, you might have to pay $400 for it, etc. Currently you would be paying $600 for it. To be fair, out of pocket expenses will be capped at $5000 a year, which translates to $416.67 a month.

Admittedly, the scale varies. That's why the plan varies from $280 billion to $450 billion a year. The $280 billion option means higher cost sharing for individuals. The $450 billion option means less. By the time one hits 400% of the poverty line you're paying 20% of costs either way, but in that in between range costs can vary a lot. For example, someone at twice the poverty line might pay 10-15% of costs with the $280 billion option, whereas with the $450 billion option, they'd be paying 0-5%. For the record, they currently pay 13-27%, so either is an improvement. 

Scaling up to your typical family of four, the poverty line is at $26,500. 138% would be $36,570, or slightly above my basic income level for such a family assuming 2 adults and 2 children. 400% of the poverty line would be $106,000. So, just think about it. Family of four at 400% of the poverty line would be paying $795 a month for insurance. That's less than the $1152 average paid now. So it does save money. Even with the out of pocket limits, they would still be paying only slightly more than the current average premiums.

All in all, this plan...helps. It likely would ensure most people on a basic income level of income, would not pay anything for healthcare. If you're working or middle class, it would likely reduce costs. This helps. Don't get me wrong, this is helping to control healthcare costs. But I can't help but wonder if single payer would be better. Keep in mind, my biggest concern with M4A was the cost it would impose on the rich. Combining current taxes, basic income, and then medicare for all taxes, the rich would likely be paying rates that potentially exceed the laffer curve in this country. Although sometimes I wonder if there is any wisdom to the laffer curve in practice at all (after all we had even higher tax rates in the past with no ill effects, and as demonstrated today, unemployment benefits arent as big of a disincentive to work as I thought). 

Still, this would be replacing taxes with premiums and out of pocket spending. Are Americans really getting a better deal?

Revisiting Bernie's Medicare for All Plan

Bernie funds his expansive medicare for all plan from a variety of sources, including heavy taxes on the rich (making it even more unsustainable, although those can be eliminated without losing much revenue), but the primary taxes most would see include a 4% household tax and a 7.5% payroll tax, amounting to a 11.5% tax. 

Everyone would face this tax. Any income beyond UBI in my ideal world would likely be subject to these taxes. To be fair the 7.5% tax would replace employers' contribution to health insurance, so only the 4% tax would likely be visible for individuals. Still, under medicare extra for all, employers would likely be paying 70% of the 9% premium (if I'm reading it right, I'm not sure, it's vague), meaning that they would be paying 6% and the employee around 3%. So let's just assume the entire 11.5% is borne by families in this sense.

Someone at 138% of the federal poverty line who pays nothing under medicare extra would be paying $2,044.06 a year under medicare for all. That's $170 a month. Someone at $51,520 (400% FPL) would pay $5,924.80 a year or $493.73 a month. That's more than medicare extra. At the same time, medicare for all would have no cost sharing. No deductibles, copays, out of pocket spending. Medicare extra could have someone paying up to $5000 more a year in costs. However, at the lower income levels, people would be shielded from the brunt of these costs. I'm tempted to actually say medicare extra for all may be more progressive in some ways. It tends to shield people under say, 200% of the poverty line a lot better than Bernie's M4A would, where people are subject to payroll taxes regardless of income, but people who earn more money likely would have a greater financial strain overall. Bernie's payroll taxes are steep. And while you get the elimination of other medical costs out of that, you could just as easily reduce or eliminate those costs among those on lower incomes anyway.

Scaling this up to a family of four, someone at 138% of the poverty line who would otherwise pay nothing under medicare extra would pay $350.46 a month for healthcare, while under medicare for extra, they would pay nothing. Someone at 400% of the poverty line would pay $1,015.83 a month under medicare for all, while under medicare extra, they would pay $795 plus up to $5000 a year in out of pocket costs. Once again, someone who is lower income would be paying less, while someone who is upper middle income subject to maximal costs would be paying more.

That said, is Bernie's medicare for all plan really all that great? Well, let me put it this way, it depends who you are. Poorer people might be better off on medicare extra, while middle to upper middle class people might be better off on medicare for all. Medicare for all has higher up front costs, with taxes being higher than most peoples' premiums under medicare extra, sometimes significantly so. However, medicare for all has the advantage of not having out of pocket costs. While those who are poorer would be shielded from these costs anyway, those who are more middle to upper middle class may be paying more under medicare extra.

"Taxes" vs "Premiums"

Just to debunk the centrists talking about the middle class, one thing I want to say is that in a lot of cases, Bernie's medicare for all could be cheaper on the middle class than a "medicare for all who want it" public option plan like Buttigieg wants (medicare extra is one of these plans). I mean, the 11.5% in taxes the middle class would be subjected to would replace all healthcare spending. There would be no premiums, copays, etc. Compared to the status quo, people would be paying less under both of these plans. Medicare for all raises "taxes" but it comes at the expense of "premiums". People are paying in some ways regardless, but they hate taxes but think premiums are good because free market or something. 

Still, at the same time, premiums being more voluntary helps me. Under a medicare extra for all plan, premiums are not a "tax". They do not contribute to the laffer curve. Rich people who don't want anything to do with medicare extra could just choose private insurance. And we wouldn't have to worry about laffer curves since they'd pay either way. On the other hand if we subjected them to income and payroll taxes in exchange for healthcare, they would try to dodge taxes like they always do. In this sense, a "premium" based "voluntary" healthcare plan with a sliding scale for income seems like it would work much better than a mandatory tax based system in accomplishing my goals of keeping taxes below the laffer curve peak on rich people. 

Conclusion

All in all, after looking at both medicare extra for all and medicare for all, both have pros and cons. Medicare for all is a much simpler single payer system, but it does have high taxes. All in all, medicare extra for all would likely be cheaper for people who are both lower income, and potentially higher income. On the flip side medicare for all would likely help the middle to upper middle class more. While premiums are lower, out of pocket costs might hurt those above median income more than the flat tax of medicare for all would. Still, I'm convinced both models are viable at this point, it's just a matter of what you prefer. Given my goals are to shield lower income people from healthcare costs, as well as keeping taxes on the rich below laffer curve peak levels, medicare extra for all is better for my specific goals. However, middle to upper middle class people might be best off on medicare for all, despite them often being the people most likely to complain about it. Well, have fun keeping employer based insurance I guess. The demographics that seem to benefit most from the specific medicare for all model seem to be the ones who fight it hardest. I'd argue medicare extra for all likely suits my specific goals better anyway.

So what else do we need besides UBI and why?

Well, as we know, I'm passionate about basic income. It's the obvious centerpiece of my economic policy, but clearly it should not cover everything. We can't replace the entire safety net with basic income and expect it to work well. So what else should we have along side it?

Healthcare - high priority

We need a robust healthcare policy along side a basic income. I would ideally like a single payer medicare for all system. However, given the sheer cost of this, I have moved toward a slightly more incremental approach known as medicare extra for all, which establishes a public option that will likely aggressively displace private insurance over time without making it illegal.

The fact is, healthcare is a human right, we need it to survive, and currently it is very expensive. We need a public option that is free for the poor and affordable at the very least for everyone else if we want to be a civilized society. This is probably the most important supplementary idea to a basic income. Just like we needed medicare to complement social security, we need universal healthcare to complement a basic income. 

Cost: $280-450 billion per year, funded by a variety of taxes that target the wealthy. 

Climate change/infrastructure bill - medium priority

Ultimately, we do need to combat climate change and update our infrastructure. It's kind of a matter of survival. However, we should not turn this stuff into a gargantuan jobs program for the sake of creating work, such proposals need to be done on a temporary basis, and then discontinued once their objectives are achieved. Otherwise we're just doing make work. I support Joe Biden's infrastructure bill to accomplish such goals. It will update infrastructure, and many of these changes will help combat climate change. It will cost $2 trillion over the next 15 years, or $133 billion a year, and largely be paid for with changes to the corporate tax code.

Free college/cancel student debt - medium priority

We need to establish free college, and here's why. First of all, an educated populace, is a public good. Not just for the jobs market, although that's part of it. If we have an educated populace, we have a populace that can make good decisions for democracy. A populace that can't be fooled by bad logic or pseudoscience as easily. A populace that can think critically.

On the jobs front, we should be supportive of free college, because if we value economic mobility, we should give people the tools to do the jobs they want to do. If we do not make college free, it becomes the privilege to the rich. Rich parents will send their kids to college, but you won't be able to, or, if they go, they will be saddled with student debt. I believe everyone should have the same opportunities, and everyone should be able to educate themselves as they desire to end up in society where they desire. While I don't begrudge those who seek the bare minimum, I also want people who want to shoot for the stars to do so.

Bernie Sanders' free college plan is supposedly $2.2 trillion over 10 years. That's $220 billion a year. And a lot of that is student debt forgiveness. After the first ten years costs may get much cheaper.

Housing - low priority

Much like healthcare and education, housing is also an important idea we should address that is subject to market failures. Why don't I make it a higher priority though? Because I believe it's a difficult issue to address adequately, and would likely be expensive for little benefit. We already have more homes than we have homeless people. The issue is one of distribution. And while we can and should create more housing, I'm not sure that this will overcome the sheer supply and demand issues some places deal with. While I believe section 8 should be preserved and arguably expanded, I do think that a UBI and giving people portability where they can move to cheaper areas is likely the better plan. 

Still, Bernie has a plan worth $250 billion a year to attempt to address the problems. I'm not sure it will fix them, but it may help.

Universal preK/Childcare - low priority

The fact is, if you want to work and have kids, it is difficult without childcare. However, childcare can cost almost as much as a job in some cases. That said, Biden has a plan to give us universal preK and free childcare via tax credits. This plan seems to be worth it, and would cost around $77.5 billion a year.

The reason this isn't higher priority is I believe the above goals are far more important.

Bonus: social security and unemployment

Obviously, in reforming the safety net, social security and unemployment should not disappear. However, given basic income, these programs should be heavily reformed to give fewer benefits, acting as a supplement to basic income rather than full programs themselves. As indicated in previous UBI funding exercises, we could likely raise $300-400 billion per year by refunding these programs to help fund UBI, while simultaneously not negatively impacting people on these programs, given the generosity of said UBI.

In the long term it might be possible to further reform these programs to act as smaller supplements, with UBI becoming a more dominant form of aid. This may be controversial and face challenges though. 

Conclusion

All in all, we need programs on top of basic income to make a perfect society, in my opinion. The top complementary program would obviously be universal healthcare, with us likely able to implement a compromise option of medicare for all known as medicare extra for all. While we likely could fund the $450 billion aggressive option, in the short term the cheaper $280 or $350 billion options might be cheaper given other stuff we want to fund.

Education is another big pillar of our economic system, providing social mobility, as well as the public good of a more informed populace that doesn't vote for Donald Trump. It would be expensive at first due to the need to forgive student debt, but in the long term it should be far more easy to afford.

Infrastructure costs might be with us in the neat future, as we update our infrastructure and try to curb climate change, but we can likely redirect funding for such things toward other ideas in the long term. 

Universal preK and childcare seem like good ideas, but I don't believe they're as important as the ones above. It would be nice if we could fit them in as childcare is expensive and does discourage people from working. 

A universal housing idea would also be a nice to have, but it may be expensive, without providing tangible benefits that solve the problem. I do believe something should be done with housing but I'm not sure the sanders proposal is the best way to do it.

Ultimately, social security and unemployment should exist in some form, but I do believe they should be reformed in the future after the people grandfathered into the current system are no longer with us. I believe they should be smaller supplements that complement UBI. However, this may be controversial and is not a hill to die on.

All in all:

High priority costs: $280-450 billion per year

Medium priority costs: $333 billion per year

Low priority costs: $327.5 billion per year

All in all we could be spending up to $1.111 trillion per year in addition to UBI to make these proposals work. Given UBI itself would cost $3.565 trillion, this would bring total costs up to $4.676 trillion.

This is only slightly more than Bernie Sanders' entire platform, which would amount to around $4.435 trillion. This is probably doable. If not, we could always cut a few things to make it work in some form. Less aggressive medicare extra plan, maybe adopt more passive student debt forgiveness which might cost less and spread the costs over a longer period of time, maybe focus less on housing and prek/childcare. etc. The fact is, this platform is very doable in my opinion. If Bernie could make it work, and I believe he could, we can make this one work. 

The only thing more annoying than SJWs are rightoids with regressive opinions

 So, sometimes I hang out online in places that are anti SJW. The main place I go to is supposed to be a place for left wingers who hate identity politics to hang out. Most of them are full on leftists, believing that identity politics is a neoliberal ploy to distract people from class consciousness, thus stopping broad based working class movements from having viability in politics. Ya know, something that I can largely agree with in a vague way, given my own brand of politics, even if I disagree on the specifics.

However, even in places like this, the people aren't always actually left wing on social issues. A lot of them are actually quite frankly awful on trans issues and the like. I don't get it. I go to these places because I'm so burnt out by culture war stuff I need to vent about how much I need culture war stuff. But a lot of these guys are literally just as bad as left wing culture warriors, because they're part of the counter movement.

You know, for as much as I crap on SJWs these days, let me say this. I don't necessarily think they're wrong at their core. They overreach with their conclusions sometimes, sure. They're obnoxious and self righteous, sure. But 85% of the time, they actually have a point behind their virtue signalling and delusional sense of moral superiority. 

Right wingers though, I have no such sympathy for. I don't get it. Like, why do people care so much about what, say, trans people do with their lives? Who cares if people want to transition? Who cares if people don't identify as their birth gender? Unless you get to that awkward point where the SJWs are considering you transphobic for refusing to sleep with a trans person, aka, part of that 15% of the time they're wrong and grossly overreaching, I don't see why it's anyone's business what anyone identifies as. Like really, I don't care. You wanna be a woman while being born a man, have fun. If it doesn't concern me, I don't see why I should care what other people do with their bodies. 

The worst part is the arguments they make remind me of what the arguments against homosexuality were when I was a conservative teenager. Pseudoscientific debates about how it's a lifestyle choice, how people can be pressured into such things, people were traumatized by sexual abuse, blah blah blah. I mean gee, thanks Sigmund Fraud, but I think I'll get my advice from the real experts. I mean, this stuff reminds me of the people concerned about "the gay agenda". It's irritating. And my gosh, the concern trolling over children wanting to transition. I mean, if gender dysphoria is a thing that can be caught early and people can transition, and this is considered the overall scientific understanding of the issue, why wouldn't you let them? 

I mean, the sad thing is most of these topics can be answered properly with a 5 second google search. But sadly, these guys end up falling into this "intellectual dark web" BS where they think they're edgy and intelligent for having regressive conservative opinions. Well, guess what, I've argued with creationists who have made several arguments for young earth creationism. I've argued with "race realists" who have all kinds of horrid views on race they justify as "scientific". I mean, I've seen people argue for flat earth before. Fake science exists, that doesn't mean it should be taken seriously, and not everyone wants to untangle all your pseudoscientific BS. 

It's not just that though. It's everything. I'm a gamer. I'm looking forward to battlefield 6, for example. But the second it comes up half the gamers out there were going on about how overly PC 5 was. I admit, 5 had a horrid trailer involving a woman with a prosthetic arm fighting in WWII, and it seemed extremely ahistorical at the time, but people are so butthurt they're STILL going on about this a full three years later and going on about how they're not buying the next game because of this.

I mean, if you played BF5, you'll know that that woman wasn't even in the game, or at the very least I didn't notice her. It was concept art, and battlefield played like...Battlefield. Yes, you could theoretically play as a black female nazi in the game, but who actually cared enough to notice? It makes no impact on how the game played.

Some people just get butthurt over everything, and these guys are just...obsessed. I don't get it. I crap on SJWs, but my greatest sin in their eyes is one of a lack of "caring." I'm not a good "ally", because I don't care. I don't virtue signal nonstop, I don't drop what I'm doing to check my privilege and fall in lockstep with their agenda. And there are a few times where I will flat out disagree with them. Being an ex conservative, I'm not an orthodox leftie on all social justice topics. I can be fairly moderate on race and immigration, for example. But that's the main issue I have with them. They're obsessed and they try to force the issues on me and I don't like that. Quite frankly, I care too much about basic income and healthcare and big societal questions to worry about their social BS most of the time. But I'll never understand the right on these issues these days.

At least when I was a socially conservative right winger I was so for religious reasons. I thought I was defending "objective morality" or something like that. I was a brainwashed kid. I didn't know any better. But the modern right doesn't even seem to rely on religion any more. The moral majority is in decline, and the alt right seems to have more secular origins. If you're not going to make an argument from authority based on religion, I don't understand why people care. I mean, I'm laid back these days, it's not a big deal. Let people live as they want, and mind your own business. I don't get why people feel the need to police their lives and flaunt their opinions on how other people should live in their faces. I don't have that desire, at all. If it doesn't affect me, I don't care. I guess that's the big thing. I wish people would stop expending this amount of energy on the topic and would stop caring.

As it turns out unemployment benefits aren't causing massive work reductions either

 You know, I was going to make a post about how basic income is so much better than unemployment benefits because unemployment benefits have tons of perverse incentives built in, whereas UBI doesn't, but the more I researched it the more the data I found kept telling me unemployment expansions aren't causing many work disincentives either. Man, work incentives are far more resilient than I thought they were. Guess the "nobody wants to work any more" thing is a bunch of crap. I'd still argue UBI is a better program for many reasons, but UC doesn't seem as bad as I thought it was either. 

Do deficits matter? A look at modern monetary theory

 Forgive me if I discussed this topic before, but I kind of wanted to look at it in a more current context given my current beliefs.

So, there's a new type of economic paradigm that's been going around the left in recent years, and it has been primarily embraced by the Berniecrats. It's basically called "modern monetary theory." I became aware of it many years ago, back around 2014ish when I was exposed to the book "Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy" by Warren Mosler. 

Essentially, the policy argues for a new progressive theory on budget deficits, claiming they're not really as bad as the right makes them out to be. The right sees the national debt as this existential crisis that will need to be paid back and threatens to bankrupt us and our children. However, as MMT rightly points out, if a country like the US is sovereign over its currency, it cannot go bankrupt. It is like being the banker in monopoly. If you run out of money, you can always print more.

It is fine, in MMT, to have some level of budget deficits and national debt. It sees taxation as money removed from the economy, and spending as money infused into the economy. Taxation acts as an economic disincentive that slows the economic engine, while spending money and spur development. The point of taxation is to remove money from the economy to stop inflation and keep it relatively stable, as too much money in the economy without an increase in production could cause inflation. But fiscally conservative policies like the right wants that want balanced budgets can be bad, because they remove too much money from the economy. Too much taxation could actually stop growth and lead to recessions. Basically, the central tenet of an MMT economist is that it's okay to spend today if it leads to economic growth tomorrow.

The national debt does not matter, the debt to GDP ratio does. As long as the national debt remains at a reasonable proportion to GDP, it does not matter, because if the GDP grows in the long term, and the debt to GDP ratio remains the same or shrinks, then the economy comes ahead. 

Generally speaking, this theory does have drawbacks, however. For example some people tend to over emphasize government spending and use it to push reckless spending. Obviously if you just spend tons and tons on the economy without taxing, you'll just explode the national debt, and while you'll never go bankrupt, you can cause a lot of inflation and economic instability. This concept of MMT sounds great on paper, but it does tend to not really fundamentally change the economy as much as you think. The national debt does matter it just debunks the conservative idea that any national debt is bad and we should be cutting social services to stop us from having any debt. Obviously some debt is good and we don't need to worry extensively about the debt like the right thinks, but obviously deficits and debt does matter.

Admittedly, a huge reason I decided to look at this, or look at it again if I have, is to see the place it has with my own ideology, and clearly, it does not have a place. Obviously, when I propose policies, I like to pay for my stuff. I've made that clear with my obsession over funding and laffer curves and stuff. We already work at a deficit. Trump exploded the national debt, as many republican presidents do. Despite their crying over the national debt they're the ones promising economic growth outpacing the national debt every time, and every time they fail to deliver and their tax breaks and military spending end up being snake oil. Then they scream at the left about how we cant afford anything because of the debt they accrue. Obviously I don't want to fund my UBI or healthcare via national debt spending. I want to fund it via taxation. 

Even MMT economists like the Sanders' Institute's Stephanie Kelton agrees. Heck, Kelton hates the idea of UBI, another reason why I'm not hardcore on MMT. MMT is still a very jobist ideology. When it wants to promote deficit spending, it does so because it wants to make investments that improve GDP. The way they see it, government programs lead to things. Education spending comes back with a work force able to make more money. And Kelton is huge on jobs programs over UBI, because a jobs program puts an investment into the country in terms of infrastructure, while UBI is just spending. Admittedly it can be argued spending increases the economy too. Yang likes to claim to fund part of his UBI via economic growth, but still, it's best not to play with fire.

The fact is, with my anti work and productivity neutral ideology, I dont see GDP as the end all to well being, and I'm not really interest in continuing this treadmill of work work work. I seek a new ideology, and that means to fund my policies, I seek budget neutrality. I do believe UBI and healthcare reform would expand the economy in a Keynesian way, but I really dont believe in deficit spending to do it.

MMT is an interesting way to look at economics and it has a lot of validity, but it also has a lot of limitations too and has little value in terms of the main programs I want to support. You can't fund a UBI via deficit spending without causing inflation, so I generally prefer not to.

Ranking the 9 healthcare systems healthcare triage analyzed

So, just because I decided we can't apply international principles to the US as their systems and histories and problems are different than ours, doesn't mean I can't look at the systems and make judgement calls about what I prefer on a pure philosophical level. I'll be looking at these systems from three major areas. First I'll be looking at the structure of the system and how preferable I find it to my ideology. Second I'll be looking at how much it costs. Third I'll look at effectiveness. Let's get to it.

 These videos come from Healthcare Triage, a very good youtube channel that covers healthcare policy and the like. 

9) Singapore

Singapore is the one system on this playlist I hate more than the US's. It's often used as a template of what a conservative utopia looks like. People put money away into health savings accounts. These are used to fund healthcare costs, and people are allowed to choose the kind of coverage they receive on a market. People who can't afford healthcare get coverage too, but it's very poor, and based on the video, sounds like third world standards. We're talking people sharing a sick bay with several other people level low. Yuck. People also are reported to put almost 20% of their salaries into these accounts. Spending overall on healthcare is low, but as the video points out its likely because of the market philosophy of when people have to spend their own money they're reluctant to. Yikes. Right wingers act like this is the gold standard for healthcare, but I find their system horrifying.

8) United States

We all know what the US system is. Expensive, with people often lacking coverage. We have huge issues in the US. Still, we do offer first class care to those who can afford it and some people do have excellent care if they're on medicare and the like. I think simply having first world standards makes it preferable to Singapore. Still, our system obviously sucks. Every other system here is arguably better than ours.

7) Switzerland

The next several systems are all about the same overall in my opinion, only the top few stand out to me. Switzerland is #7, and is close to what centrist liberals seem to want to turn us into. Switzerland relies on insurance mandates. All healthcare is private, and everyone is mandated to get insurance, similar to obamacare. People who are poorer get subsidies to afford it. This system has very good quality healthcare, but it is relatively expensive, second only to the US. And it also has high out of pocket spending. It's not preferable in my opinion.

6) Germany

Germany has a system that is a lot like Switzerland. It has a largely market based system, but it's nonprofit in nature. It also has an insurance mandate. However, I ranked it a bit higher because out of pocket costs seem lower. 

5) Taiwan

I really want to like Taiwan's system. I mean, they implemented single payer. And it's very affordable to the end user. But at the same time, the quality is said to be lacking, with them suffering the notable drawbacks critics of single payer often criticize single payer systems for like not being good at handling certain diseases. I wish I could make this higher, but its quality is relatively low compared to the others. Even if I philosophically like it.

4) Australia

Australia is a largely publicly funded system based on its own medicare program. It seems quite solid in terms of outcomes, but costs are a bit high, as people are hit with relatively high out of pocket spending, comparable to Switzerland. Still, it gets good outcomes and is largely a public system. 

3) France

France has several publicly funded funds for healthcare. Which one you get depends on who you are. However, everyone gets covered and even the unemployed get a good system of care here. It's relatively expensive, but seems to provide great coverage. It seems like a solid system. 

2) Canada

The gold standard for single payer systems. However, it doesn't seem as impressive as it's often made out to be. Government spending only accounts for 70% of healthcare spending, and private insurance does cover a lot of things the single payer system doesn't. Still, its quality of care is a lot better than the right often claims it is, and their system works. 

1) United Kingdom

The UK has a system that is not only completely government run, but it has good outcomes and is cheap. It angers me how little they spend (like 9% of GDP) while having a totally government run system with no up front costs and good outcomes. I mean, this is what the US should strive to do, but can't given how bloated its system is. If we had the UK's system I bet we could fund a full UBI and have a full universal system. But alas, we're not the UK. 

What republicans want

Republicans often want to transition to a Singapore like system and I often hear conservatives go on about how great Singapore is for healthcare. That said they're the ones keeping us with a broken system at best, and their ideal solution for "universal" coverage would downgrade us to the one system I hate MORE than the US. Health savings accounts aint it. The amount of money people are spending on these things is higher than the "taxes" in most other countries. And if you run out of money, well, you get bargain basement care.

What democrats want

For as much as mainstream democrats mention wanting universal healthcare, they don't seem interested at all. They seem to want to go the Germany/Switzerland approach, which just...wouldn't...work here. I mean, we tried something similar to that with the ACA. Insurance mandates. What happened was that people were forced to buy expensive for profit insurance they couldn't afford, and it didn't solve anything. Medicaid was expanded, but the broken system relied on states accepting an expanded rollout, and doing it properly. Which even if they accepted it, they didn't do it well. For example in my state you basically need to sign up for welfare to get coverage. It's ridiculous. It's the most broken, passive aggressive way to accomplish healthcare. I'm sorry, but insurance mandates aren't it either. Not to mention they're in a tenuous constitutional position. 

What Bernie wants

Bernie wants a single payer medicare for all system that would be a lot more aggressive than the other single payer type systems we have here. It would have no copays, no deductibles, and basically function like the UK's NHS, but without the state running the hospitals. While I have no doubt his plan would be the envy of the world if implemented, as we know, it's insanely expensive. Bernie would be taking on the costs of our bloated system all at once and while he would be cutting some spending and deflating costs a little bit, it still would require a massive expansion of spending. Again, this is why I keep saying these other countries systems can't work here. We can't implement insurance mandates and have them work as well as Germany or Switzerland do. We can't implement single payer and suddenly have a Canadian or British style system with Canadian or British style spending levels. Maybe if we did this 50 years ago, but not now. 

What I would want

Honestly, the Medicare Extra for All system seems to function most like Australia or France. While it wouldn't be the best systems possible, it would be much cheaper. Basically we would have a combination of public and private insurance, with some level of cost sharing existing. Universal coverage would be achieved, and in the long term, it does provide the framework through which we can expand the system to a true universal system. But for now, it would greatly expand the system more than an insurance mandate would, but for far less of a cost than a true single payer system would. And it would give us a long term hope to get costs under control and over time and to expand us to a single payer system.

The fact is, I'm a believer in universal healthcare, and I love Bernie's proposals at heart, but I'm also being somewhat of a realist here. I believe republican and democratic responses to the healthcare crisis are awful, and both parties seem to be choosing among models that I deem to be comparably some of the worst discussed here on a relative level. Bernie wants to make us the envy of the world, but given our insane cost to GDP ratio, I can't justify that given my other policy preferences. So, I find this compromise with Medicare Extra to bring us close to the goal. Get us to a respectable, albeit imperfect system, at a reasonable price. Better than most democrats and their band aid fixes, but not as crazy as what Bernie wants to do. Boom, it would work.

Conclusion

People around the world have tackled the healthcare problem in different ways, and they seemed to have solved the problems to varying extents. However, those models are not necessarily applicable to the US. Insurance mandates would do little to stem the tide of rising costs and affordability issues, and are incompatible with my ideology. Single payer and NHS style systems seem philosophically most preferable to me, but to do them right here in the US would cost way too much. This exercise does make me jealous as fudge of the UK though, which seems to hit the trifecta of costless universal coverage, low government costs, and good outcomes. Realistically, we would need to settle for a middle ground between the two. I think such a system would provide good results, relative to its costs. I sure as heck want something better than an insurance mandate, but cheaper than a full universal system. I think medicare extra for all would get us there over time while transitioning us to rank 3-4 overnight if we really wanted it to.

Summarizing the past several days of thought into one article

So, this journey began when someone on reddit asked what the maximum sustainable basic income was. I figured it would make a good post so I analyzed it. While it revealed to me a lot about how funding a UBI works and how low UBIs are remarkably easy to fund while larger ones get progressively more difficult, this led me to have more questions. How much tax is too much?

I knew of the idea of the laffer curve so I looked into that. Originally I thought it was like 50something percent, but more research indicated estimates around 70%, with some as high as 76%. Looking at the tax burdens top incomes face now, a UBI raising taxes by 20% points would bring us close to that laffer curve. The rich currently pay 47% including local taxes, so 20 points onto that brings us to 67%. Since medicare for all would raise it 11 points more, it would bring us to 78% to fund both ideas. Now, to be fair, it's possible the laffer curve refers only to the federal rate, not the local rate, as even with local taxation the rich pay 67% of income with the new 45% tax rate, but still, not wanting to tempt fate, I decided that funding both UBI and M4A would be unsustainable. Maybe it can work. I'm not sure. I'm not a policy expert on that front. I don't know if 70% is just the rate for federal taxation or all taxation, but I still would like to keep taxes around 70% if possible for revenue raising purposes. I don't care if I go a little over like 72% for reference, but if I'm at 75% or higher, yeah I do care.

I then spent a significant amount of time looking at what kinds of UBIs I could fund with Bernie's M4A plan. And the best I could do was a partial UBI of $9,000 for adults and $3,000 for children. Better than nothing, but still, I would like to get at least my old $12,000/$4000 numbers if possible, if not my new $13,200/$4,800 numbers. I mean if I didn't fund a medicare for all plan, I could arguably fund a UBI up to around $14,000-$15,000 if I wanted to. But with Medicare for all, it would be harder. 

This caused me to look into healthcare spending in the US. Our system is a complete and utter mess. It angers me how little people in other countries are paying compared to us. We got countries like Canada and the UK who have single payer or government run systems that get good results, that cover everyone, and they pay far less than we do. If we want to implement those plans all at once, we would need to bite the bullet and absorb the costs of a bloated system all at once, which would fiscally threaten my UBI plans.

I considered the idea of just moving toward a less aggressive plan, like a public option someone like Biden or Yang would push, but those plans are...weak. Looking at what the structural problems are with the system, most plans the democrats have involving limited medicare buy ins and bureaucratic solutions just don't cut it. I don't want the ACA 2.0. I'm sorry, I don't. We can talk about how great Germany is for having insurance mandates or whatever, but hey, we're not those systems. Our system is too broken, and I'm convinced some sort of medicare for all or at the very least a less expensive hybrid option is the path forward.

So I looked at alternatives. Standard band aid plans people like Biden support are very cheap, like $75 billion. Weak. But Bernie's full plan is $1.75 trillion in additional spending per year. And while if I were a standard social democrat that's affordable, I'm also trying to pay for a $3-3.5 trillion UBI plan too, and that limits our options. Ideally, I'd like something that covers more people and provides easily accessible universal coverage, while still, for the time being, preserving the private system somewhat do we don't have to take on all of those costs at once. I came across 2 plans I liked that did this. One was the Center for American Progress's Medicare Extra for All plan, and the other was the Medicare for America Act. I decided to settle upon the Medicare Extra For All plan to be my tentative endorsed plan. It would be fairly cheap and affordable, and taxed by taxes on the rich that may not necessarily count toward that 70% laffer curve. It would provide universal coverage for everyone who doesn't have it, and aggressively transition people to Medicare Extra over time. This would allow us to slowly evolve into a single payer system and serve as a springboard allowing for a shift toward a single payer system over a generation. Hopefully this would allow a much cheaper single payer system to emerge over time, similar to other countries, without needing to bite the bullet of all of the costs at once. It would also replace taxes with paid premiums depending on income level, which may not count toward the laffer curve as the alternative to medicare extra would be to buy private insurance for the same money anyway. So it's a market transaction. Seems like a win to me. Keeps the system private enough for those who want it that way, while aggressively expanding us to universal coverage overnight and potentially strangling the private systems to death over time. A more gradual transition to medicare for all. 

And that's where I'm at. I believe this plan would accomplish the same results I want, while being much cheaper, and allowing me to pursue a poverty line level UBI. Some Bernie supporters might be disappointed with this shift, but I'm disappointed with Bernie not supporting a UBI, so the feeling's mutual. I respect the push to M4A. I wish we could do both simultaneously in full unadulterated form. But reality forces me to work within certain constraints, and because I prefer a full UBI over a full medicare for all plan, I think that Medicare Extra for all will be a solid transition.

Oh, but to answer my original question, the maximum sustainable UBI depends on what else you're trying to fund. We could likely fund a UBI of around $14-17k if we ONLY wanted to fund that to the exclusion of all other potential supplementary plans. Meanwhile if you went with full on Medicare for all, that would drop precipitously to $8-10k or so. With Medicare Extra for all, the amount would be closer to the targetted $12-15k or so, so I'm going to stick with that.

Looking at the reaction of Medicare Extra for All

 So, after finding the Medicare Extra for All proposal to be interesting and a decent middle ground between universal coverage and affordability, I decided to look more into the reactions to it. It seems surprising to me. Much of the neoliberal crowd seems to love it, and much of the Bernie crowd seems to hate it. 

Honestly, I have a different approach than most people. I am a believer in single payer medicare for all. I believe a full medicare for all plan is possible, but after running the numbers in tandem with a UBI proposal I decided that it may not be possible to fund both proposals while remaining under the laffer curve peak. I mean, maybe it's possible, but it would be pushing it. Given both are multi trillion dollar proposals, it is very clear that one of them has to give. Either I need to compromise my UBI plan, or I need to compromise on medicare for all. I would prefer to compromise on medicare for all if I can find an adequate replacement plan, and the plan I decided was best is the medicare extra proposal. If I were a pure Bernie oriented social democrat I would just support medicare for all, but given my indepentarian UBI roots, I felt a need to look into other options.

The proposal originates from the Center for American Progress, which is associated with the more centrist wing of the democratic party. It is the think tank Neera Tanden is from, you know, that lady who got rejected from a cabinet position in Biden's administration from talking crap about Bernie and others on twitter. Normally I would not give these people the time of day. I feel like centrists love circlejerking about pragmatism and incremental change, but they rarely deliver.

This medicare extra plan is precisely what I need given my own goals though. Here's the thing. Most public option plans SUCK. Like, most centrist democratic plans are complete garbage. I passed over so many plans in my analysis in the past article because I feel like a lot of moderates like to push stuff that goes through the motions and barely accomplishes anything. 

But this medicare extra plan, while it is a public option, it's a GOOD public option. The thing that sets it apart is it automatically enrolls people into it. It sets a minimum guaranteed bottom for all citizens, much like single payer, or a universal healthcare plan. It essentially accomplishes the coverage of single payer without actually implementing it fully. And over time, much like Yang's "I support the spirit of medicare for all without supporting it" mentality, this plan does actually intend to push people toward medicare for all over time. It actually aggressively enrolls people and makes it the de facto default option, not some theoretical alternative hiding in some dark corner of a government website where you need to fill out dozens of pages of information and probably pay a monthly fee just to get coverage. Over time, more people might choose this plan, and we get everyone having healthcare on it. Alternatively, employers might remain prevalent and people might get their coverage through that. Much like my UBI and anti work views, it gives people that choice. It essentially has the same philosophy in a sense. If you don't work, you get UBI. But if you work, you slowly pay it back the more you make. Universal coverage with a phase out for higher incomes. That's basically what this is. It is aligned with my indepentarian goals for ending wage slavery, and guaranteeing universal coverage, while also costing far less in the short term. The difference here is if you don't work, you get the base medicare extra plan. If you work, you pay into it or alternativrly buy your own insurance. Seems fair.

This is the sort of plan Yang should have supported in 2020. If he did, I might have seriously supported him more. And I think this plan is consistent with the Yang Gang's philosophy. The thing is, he always claimed, after backing off of medicare for all, to support a public option that would get us to medicare for all eventually. Not ideal being a M4A fan, but a decent compromise that would be consistent with that philosophy. Yang lost me in part because he couldn't even solve that. 

I get why the Bernie crowd is upset. It isnt medicare for all. Noted. I understand the appeal for medicare for all. If I were not supporting UBI and had a Sanders-esque social democratic ideology, I would say go for M4A. I believe Sanders' plan could work, and if youre not trying to fund a $3 trillion UBI, is a lot more affordable than people say it is. But as someone who is supporting a $3 trillion UBI plan, I would prefer to go with a more intermediate option on healthcare. We need a plan that isn't some dinky medicare buy in or other Biden-esque band aid, but also isn't a $1.75 trillion UBI killer. My recent thinking had me wondering if I could find an intermediate option, and this is it. Again, I get why the Bernie crowd would be disappointed with this. Well, in response, I 'm also disappointed Bernie isn't for UBI and would prefer a $1.6 trillion jobs program instead. So there. Different priorities. 

At least this public option has teeth and actually WOULD get us to medicare for all some day without costing an arm and a leg. That's why I support it. It isn't just a symbolic gesture. It isn't just a bunch of nothing. It actually does accomplish what the centrists keep saying they want to accomplish, and doesn't appear to be a smoke and mirrors trick. It doesn't solve all problems, but it fits the price tag and appropriate level of aggression in accomplishing universal healthcare that I'm looking for if I am going to compromise on medicare for all. 

Is there any other option? Untangling the mess that is our healthcare system and looking at other medicare for all systems

So, I've spent a lot of tonight researching healthcare. At first I looked overseas at what other countries are doing, but I quickly realized any model they have cannot and will not apply to the US. A much as neolibs love to go on about how public option plans work for Germany, or as much as we like to talk about how great Canada and the UK's systems are, the US is ****ed. I wouldn't normally curse on this blog, but that's the only way I can describe it, we are completely, and utterly ****ed.

Let's untangle this to some extent. 

Americans pay 17% of our GDP per capita for healthcare, these other countries pay around 11%. Our cost just on our public systems alone are comparable to what other countries pay for all of their healthcare. We used to pay similar amounts of money as other countries on healthcare, but since 1970 the differences grew. Other countries have figured this crap out decades ago, but our costs have ballooned as we have a broken system that is literally just about the worst ways to do things. We should have solved these problems 50 years ago, bur we didn't so now we're paying for it. Kind of like how if you dont get preventative healthcare early you pay for treating a full blown disease. It's an ironic comparison.

To go into the factors for why our healthcare is so expensive:

1) We literally have multiple systems. We have the exchanges, medicare, medicaid, the VA, and various forms of private insurance. Not only does this make the system fragmented, but it creates tons of what David Graeber calls BS jobs in which we need an army of administrators just to talk to all of the different parties in the system and parlay for them the system to work. This is a huge reason Bernie's medicare for all plan just decided we could axe $500 billion off of costs just by switching over. By having a single system, we could just save all that money and get rid of all of those unnecessary jobs.

2) The profit motive combined with lack of oversight. Our government sucks at regulating the health insurance industry. It sucks at reining costs in. Our drug prices are ridiculous, people in medical jobs are given inflated salaries, and in my experience, this is often defended by the fact that medical school is so expensive (which makes a valid argument for bringing student debt down and making public colleges free), and generally speaking in a market of supply and demand, the rule of the game is "your money or your life." So people pay whatever they're charged regardless of how insane it is.

3) We test a lot because a private system means doctors do tons of tests to cover their butts from lawsuits. 

In addition, there are other problems I've seen over the years.

4) Lack of coverage means some people skip on paying bills anyway, meaning everyone else has to pay more. We're all paying for the freeloaders whether we realize it or not. 

5) Fixing the problems is difficult. Our system doesn't work like other countries. In Canada for example, the provincial (state) governments often set up insurance, but in the US, state governments refuse to. We tried expanding medicaid under the ACA but small government zealots in red states often don't and even in states that have the sign up process is complex and arcane in my experience (say this as an uninsured person myself), making the experience way harder than it should be. And honestly, making it simpler is going to be difficult as that can run into constitutional challenges of federalism, etc. For this system to work in the US, the entire system likely will need to be managed by the federal government, as state governments often won't play ball and forcing them could run into constitutional challenges.

That said, we're on our own. We can't just look at what other countries do and emulate it. If we take on all costs ourselves like other countries do, we're often paying twice as much for the same stuff because our prices have inflated so much in the past half century. And because our government isn't their government, trying to simply say "let's do what Germany/UK/Canada does" is just not going to work. An American solution needs to address American problems in the American system.

And let's face it, a non universal plan is just gonna suck. Democrats love to push these ideas that just tweak a few things here and there, and that doesn't solve anything. ACA fixed some problems but left us to rot in a lot of ways. A Biden-esque public option would just be more of the same. Oh hey, we tweaked some more stuff. Now you can BUY some sort of plan on the market place for who knows what price that costs who knows what with who knows what deductibles and copays, but hey, progress! Yeah, gonna be honest. Only reason I've kind of given these plans ANY credibility in the past few days is because of the laffer curve argument. While I believe America CAN fund a medicare for all plan, it cannot necessarily fund both that and a full UBI at the poverty line, without potentially running into some barriers. Bernie's plan would raise the government budget by $1.75 trillion, and would impose a 7% payroll tax and a 4% household tax to pay for healthcare, basically imposing a 11% tax just to fund healthcare. That is, too much.

But there's hope. I did some research, and it appears that Bernie's plan isn't the only one that has truly universal coverage. Bernie's plan is just the most famous, and also the most expansive. As this video points out, Bernie's plan basically takes medicare, puts it on steroids, and gives it to everyone. It is the most comprehensive and brute forcey type plans. But that brute force comes at a terrible cost, and that is, its terrible cost that compromises my potential ability to do a UBI. 

That video lists 10 potential plans out there, including four versions of actual universal healthcare. I'm not particularly interested in the other 6 band aid proposals here, unless I find not one of those four universal plans suitable. I am someone who believes that we need a healthcare system that makes coverage universal and easy to access, cheap or free at the point of service, but also is more affordable than Bernie's plan.

The other three candidates

The House Medicare For All Bill

This bill apparently does much the same kind of thing as Sanders' bill, but there's no clear funding mechanism in it. Next.

This one was easy. It had no details for how to pay for it so I can't properly analyze it, now can I?

Medicare extra for all

This plan transitions us to Medicare for All more slowly than a full single payer bill. It would enroll all newborns and people turning 65 into medicare extra. People who lack health insurance would also get medicare extra. People with other healthcare would retain that. Over time, everyone would eventually get medicare extra and the current system would eventually die out.

This plan looks like it would cost around $280-450 billion, which seems far more affordable than Bernie's plan. This seems about right, and what my target is for affordable healthcare coverage. Far more affordable than Bernie's $1.75 trillion, but far more comprehensive than Biden's dinky $75 billion a year plan that would be like peeing on a wildfire.

Proposed taxes for it include:

Wealth tax- $275 billion a year.

Reform capital gains taxes- $200 billion a year.

Surtax on top incomes- $50 billion a year

Financial transactions tax- $100 billion a year

Repealing Trump Tax Cuts for corporations - $170 billion a year

Repealing other Trump tax cuts- $80 billion a year

Closing loopholes that allow rich people to dodge payroll taxes on medicare- $30 billion a year

In addition, other funding mechanisms come from excluding people currently on medicare proper or in the private market, as well as potentially payroll taxes.

All in all, if it costs what it does and it actually gets the job done, I could live with this. This is far better than what Biden's doing while being far more affordable than Bernie's plan. This would likely not threaten the laffer limits establishing UBI and M4A would do. It would allow a slow, gradual transition to medicare for all that would likely reduce costs along the way and ensure we pay a sane portion of our GDP on healthcare like every other civilized country in the world. 

Medicare for America Act

This plan would put everyone currently outside of the employer based healthcare system on Medicare for America. This includes everyone on a government plan, the uninsured, and those on the individual market. 

This plan would not eliminate private insurance and unlike medicare extra, has no mechanisms to push people toward the medicare for all system.

Looking at the taxation section of the law, it would impose a 5% tax on people making over $500k, so it would tax the rich directly on income, contributing to the laffer curve. It would raise the medicare payroll tax to 4%. It would raise net investment income tax. It would introduce excise taxes on tobacco products, alcohol, and sugary drinks.

So, this bill would raise income on top earners by 8%. This is less than Bernie's plan, but still not as good as the medicare extra plan in my opinion which shifted taxation toward wealth taxes, capital gains, and corporate taxation. It would raise the federal burden on the rich from 33% to 41%, meaning UBI would bring it up to 61%. Or with local taxes, it would raise it from 47% to 55%, which would give me the ability to tax at 15% before hitting the 70% laffer curve. 

Honestly, I like medicare extra better, but this is still better than bernie's plan.

And to be fair, I think we could rectify this issue just by removing the surtax. I already know from my own UBI tinkerings in which I proposed a nearly identical tax that such a tax would only net $90 billion, which is nothing, so maybe I shouldn't even worry. Just shifting that aspect to something else, anything else, would likely solve the problem. If we didn't have that surtax but replaced it, with, say, a wealth tax, or a corporate tax hike, we could easily make up that revenue and only have an increased tax of 3% on people, meaning a 20% UBI tax would be viable.

Conclusion

Honestly, this has shifted me back toward supporting a full UBI with a full medicare for all plan. The thing is, there are multiple versions of Medicare for all, and they all do different things. The best way to do medicare for all isn't by brute forcing it Bernie style, but by implementing a system that covers everyone, while still maintaining private coverage from now. That can cut costs significantly, making it far more affordable. Over time, we can expand healthcare coverage to account for more people, having a full medicare for all system. And, from what I can tell, these plans likely only cost around $200-500 billion or so a year, rather than the insane $2.75 trillion total cost of Bernie's plan. While the cost of these plans will likely rise over time, as more people get public insurance, hopefully we can fund them in a way that's more sustainable.