tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639894776845764116.post5137148490382648246..comments2017-01-11T14:04:13.250-08:00Comments on What’s The Worst That Could Happen?: I Am Not An Economist - Basic Incomemjaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07642108550616338576noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639894776845764116.post-65860130395962515112017-01-11T14:04:13.250-08:002017-01-11T14:04:13.250-08:00The ideal way to fund it would be to tax carbon/po...The ideal way to fund it would be to tax carbon/pollution, resource extraction, and anything related to the commons/public land. Those revenues would fund a "Citizen's Dividend Fund." Ideally this would grow over time and pay out dividends to each citizens.<br /><br />Another source of funds would be taxing financial speculation (the Robin Hood Tax), which would be a small "sales tax" on the high-risk speculative financial trading and derivatives, etc (less than 1% could generate a lot of income) - these are the same things that lead to the Great recession and currently are not taxed. Taxing them would temper the risk a bit and potentially provide a lot of income for government programs.<br /><br />Doing those things, we could reduce income taxes on the poor and middle class (while ratcheting up on the rich, to temper inequality).<br /><br />All-in-all there are a lot of revenue streams that should be tapped anyway.<br /><br />I disagree with removing all social services. Services like SNAP, disability assistance, and even welfare, are important to those less advantaged. Social Security and Medicare are both vital programs that should stay as well - both are funded fully or partially by all citizens. Social Security is a retirement program all working Americans fund, and are then able receive pay based on how much we've contributed - it's our money!<br /><br />We could, however, remove some other tax burdens that are regressive - like sales taxes, income taxes (unless it's a large income and contributes to inequality), etc.Joshua Nelsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18091642445157740404noreply@blogger.com