Hacker News Reader

Comment by twoodfin | Hacker News Reader

I agree, but unfortunately I don't think "basic income and no other welfare programs" is a politically stable policy. No sooner will it have been introduced than politicians will be tempted to screw with it to help a favored constituency.

Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI.

Live in an area damaged by a hurricane? We'll bump your BI for a year or two.

I don't think a "simpler" tax code would last much longer for the same reason.

The only way I think it could actually work is if we turned over the whole thing to a bunch of unelected technocrats like the Fed (which might not be a terrible idea since it gives them another lever on economic policy...)

View on HN

Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI.

So ... politicians would suddenly start to pay people to teach in the inner city? Those scoundrels! I can see why you're opposed to this concept.

One of the proposed advantages of BI is its simplicity (which among other things means few loopholes and lower enforcement overhead). The point the poster you quote is making is that no tax code will remain simple for very long.

In fact you support that point. Many of the complexities we have now come from adding "just one more feature" to the tax code, until we end up with something so complex that there is an entire industry built up around paying taxes.

If he said "In exchange for supporting inner-city teachers, we will be indirectly subsidizing H&R Block to the tune of $2B" you might ponder whether or not it's worth it.

Why not? If you get BI out of any political process, you already had a majority in support of the simplification. It just requires vigilance, which our current track record for is terrible, but any economic system or any political process requires vigilance, and a BI isn't any different.

It is true that over the entire history of the United States, the American public has proven itself apathetic to the abuses of their politicians, but that is a cultural problem that needs to be solved regardless of having a basic income or not.

They already do. Working in an inner-city can substantially reduce your college loans as a teacher, especially if you were getting something higher, like an ED.D. (doctorate in education)

Substantially getting closer to zero assets is not really what I call society valuing education - but that is not your point. My point, though, was this: it turns out it's possible to provide incentives to people without manipulating a BI scheme - you just actually pay people money, like, you know, income from work they're performing. So there is no reason to assume that introduction of a basic income should be opposed because it would introduce unmanageable complexity as well, especially given that it would most certainly eliminate far more complexity.

It's true. While the basic income is a superior system to welfare in theory, political reality assures it wouldn't be handled in the way Friedman would prefer. It would just lay the foundation for all sorts of political redistribution, which would be very destabilizing.

It's a much more efficient and transparent tool to incentivize behavior than the current tax code.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com