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Comment by chronic81 | Hacker News Reader

> your tax increases to fund the basic income program will be a lot more than the $1K you'll receive, so there won't be extra for rent at all.

This will never happen (through government legislation). If it does happen, then the policy will encourage individuals not to work, since the income to work ratio is better if you make less money. This would be a disaster for a country's economic development.

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Having the choice to work a bit less is actually good. And the economic gains from increased distributive efficiency would be huge.

In reality, there is already a large basic income program, it's called Social Security.

I'm sure you probably think that giving millions of elderly the freedom to retire is terrible for economic development, but it is no doubt a great advance for human decency.

You're assuming a 100% taxed marginal rate after some income level. That seems extremely unlikely. As long as the marginal tax rate is <100%, there will be incentive to work.

But who says income tax is the only type of tax? You can use a progressive consumption tax (no tax under $x item, y% tax from $x to $z, etc) to raise the funds. Economists much prefer this type of tax because it disincentives consumption rather than production.

Can you explain why this will not happen? A UBI is an income redistribution scheme. Higher income brackets must necessarily pay more than they receive, one way or another. Is it problematic? Sure, but so are all sorts of programs already in effect.

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