1) Obviously you aren't just handing a flat $5000 or $10000 to every citizen. You rework the tax curve so it's net neutral for most.
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Ultimately, this is a question of math. The lower end of the income curve is subject to objective constraints, and they're absurd right now.
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But you can fiddle with that curve without changing the middle or top of it much. $5000 to every citizen is a fiction.
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There will be a cost, but far less than NYT glurge implies. And could releasing the poor from welfare traps help them be more productive?
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Incentives matter to the poor as much as the rich, if not more so. Some can do more. Some can't. But most are trapped under what we have.
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3c) The thought of putting bureaucrats out of work and setting fire to their forms warms my heart. But more soberly...
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...obviously you can't dissolve all the other systems of aid. The severely disabled need more than $500 a month!
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But you can remove an awful lot of dead weight--people printing out forms so others can fill them in--and a lot of humiliation and abuse.
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For many, humiliation feels like a necessary part of the system--the weak need to be punished so they'll be less weak! This rarely works.
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Humiliation & the whims of a paper machine break you down into hopeless passivity. Ease up on that, and improve incentives...it might work?
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Some poor people are hopeless. Some people are awful! So what? Does it make you feel better to piss on them? Does it help? Really?
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OK, I'm done.
End of conversation
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. Banned in Sweden. SubGenius, Zhuangist, white-hat troll. Defrocked mathematician. Brain problems.