NIT, UBI, what's the difference? On paper, there is none. They're two different implementations of the same policy. The UBI gives everyone a check and increases taxes to act as a clawback mechanism. It's expensive, over $3 trillion a year, but at the same time, it gives everyone money, unconditionally, every months, no matter what. It treats having a guaranteed income, a lifeline, as a right that cannot be taken away.
A NIT is similar, but is done via the tax system. Essentially, you file taxes, you get money back if you're under a certain threshold. The amount is calculated in a similar way as UBI would. For every dollar earned, the amount is reduced by some amount, normally 50 cents (although in my plan would be 20 cents, to replace the 20% flat tax). This is intended to encourage work, and not implement welfare traps like I discussed in my recent article on unemployment benefits. It can be free of all kinds of bureaucratic screwery, but one thing that always unsettled me is it always came off as susceptible to it. Say someone said "well we can't implement a UBI, what about an NIT?" as a compromise. It sounds good, it would even be something I would take.
Okay, well imagine the next administration comes in and wants to screw it up. Messing with a UBI would have a noticeable effect that would likely alienate the population. Hey, you're messing with my UBI check, stop that. An NIT would be much easier to mess with. Say, they make the sign up process more complicated and require filling out more forms. I mean, NIT is opt in, not an automatic thing like UBI is, you need to report your economic status to get money. That seems far less glamorous and more complicated than just automatically getting a check. I kind of view sign up processes on social services to be a lot like having literacy tests and voter ID on voting. The goal of these is, on the surface, to cut down on fraud, make sure only those who need it get it, but at the same time, it could actually be used to try to make it unattractive to sign up. I mean, I know in my state you can sign up for medicaid if you make below the poverty line. But at the same time, the process is so complicated and tied to welfare and all of these extraneous requirements that many....don't.
And say you do sign up, okay, well, we all know how unemployment goes, you need to wait several weeks before the checks start. Meanwhile bills are piling up now. You're stressed out, and you don't know when you'll finally have money. That's another problem with these kinds of bureaucratic systems. You need to sign up, and then they need to start the benefits some time after you claim them. UBI gives you benefits straight up, regardless of whether you need them. And when you find a job or your financial situation changes, congrats, that's another form! And say that job doesn't work, more forms and waiting times! Leaving your spouse? Another form if your income was dependent on them! That also can stop people from leaving abusive situations they very well should by the way. It's a mess.
And say this conservative administration decides to add work requirements. These can be politically attractive to..."welfare" programs. Middle class dudes be like "well I work so everyone else should work, and im paying taxes and why should they get something for free blah blah blah". Even if they benefit from these programs too, conservatives might be susceptible to these kinds of taking points. And then they claim people are buying weed on government money, and yay, you just reinvented the wheel of welfare. Except since it's cash benefits, you end up with UK's universal credit.
See the problem? A UBI, implemented in the form of an NIT, has the potential to become "just another welfare program". A universal benefit given to people to give them dignity regardless of their situation becomes just another bureaucratic means tested program with work requirements. Welfare gets messed with all the time. The system is so screwed specifically because over time they added so much bureaucracy and requirements and means testing that the programs become unrecognizable. Johnson's original programs were never great. They suffered a lot of problems conservatives always railed about like splitting up families and welfare traps. But then these conservatives break them even worse adding even more requirements to them and making them harder and more oppressive to the poor.
Yet wanna know what almost never gets messed with directly? SOCIAL SECURITY. Unlike welfare, social security is treated like something that is earned. People pay into it all of their life, but it is also because people are treated like adults and dignified when they live on it. No one messes with it. No one would dare. It would be political suicide. At best conservatives are left nipping at the margins, but they can't get rid of social security. I want UBI to be like that. A right of citizenship that you gain from birth, simply for having a valid social security number. You keep it no matter what, and if you want more, you work for it. But that check is sacrosanct and shall not be screwed with. That's what I want out of UBI. If you implement NIT, or even worse, some weird EITC program, you end up with some bureaucratic means tested nonsense with arbitrary requirements that lower public support, give people the idea that government can't do anything right, and cause misunderstandings that cause people to constantly want to cut it and make it worse and worse. That's the cycle democrats get into when they compromise and offer weak proposals. They implement an idea poorly to save money, and then the right breaks it even worse, and then people lose support for democrats because it's like they aren't even trying.
So yeah, I'm going to be firm on UBI as the key proposal, and not compromise on an NIT. It's the same thing with healthcare really. I would ideally want medicare for all, but at least medicare extra automatically enrolls the uninsured. The problem with democrats is they support a weak public option at best that is an opt in or "buy in" while maintaining the same flawed problems with obamacare's medicaid expansion, if they don't just support an insurance mandate. I mean, what is this crap? It's like they try to find the most ineffective ways of helping people to save money, believing it's more pragmatic, then act surprised when there's so much controversy over their proposals. The left aint happy, the right aint happy, no one's happy except centrist technocrats and upper class suburbanites who don't even participate in these programs but get to feel "moral" because they supported the right thing without their taxes going up. It sucks.
So yeah, whenever possible, I will prefer the more expensive option that actually does it right. I'd even support medicare for all if I could find a way to fund it without violating my self imposed laffer curve maximums to do so. And if I do compromise, I'll do it in a way that opens the doors to progressive expansion, not cuts and bureaucratic screwery.
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