M1: From Kerkow media. So what are you going to do
M1: about it? Have you ever had someone change your mind
M1: when you thought your mind was made up?
M2: A returning guest today is a controversial economist who knocked
M2: me for a loop. You see, I spent the first
M2: half of my life wait for it economically, at least conservative.
M2: But our returning guest made me think a lot. Sure.
M2: Like any business person, I don't want to pay a
M2: dollar more in tax than I have to. But also
M2: I'm sick and tired of hearing how people in this
M2: country suffer food insecurity. And let's call it roof insecurity, too.
M2: There must be a better way, right? There has to be. Well,
M2: there is. And buried in the Biden stimulus package is
M2: one giant step closer to joining what Germany, Turkey, UK, Ireland, Denmark,
M2: France and Spain have been successfully doing for years. This
M2: is politics. Meet me in the middle. I'm Bill Kurtis.
M4: So meet again my co-host, Jane Albrecht, an international trade
M4: attorney who fought for U.S. economic and business interests to
M4: high level government officials in many countries. She protected First
M4: Amendment rights for the film industry, and she's a member
M4: of the U.S. Supreme Court bar. She's also been involved
M4: with several U.S. presidential campaigns. Jane Albrecht. Welcome back.
F5: Nice to be here and welcome. You want to doctor.
M4: You want to Marinescu. She's an economist joining us from
M4: the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.
M4: She's a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of
M4: Economic Research, where she studies the labor markets to help
M4: us craft policies that are designed to enhance employment productivity,
M4: economic security, antitrust law for the labor market, the universal
M4: basic income, which you'll hear more about unemployment insurance. And
M4: another subject that is a point of contention in Washington
M4: these days, the minimum wage. She's testified for Congress and
M4: the Federal Trade Commission. She's been published or quoted in
M4: all the leading economic journals, as well as The New
M4: York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal and so on. And
M4: of course, now she's really made it for a second time.
M4: She's here with us on Meet Me in the Middle, Yohana.
M4: Welcome back. I'm really glad to be here. So you
M4: want to you did it. You changed my mind. I
M4: had pegged you as one of those crazy liberals who
M4: wanted a tax wildly spend like crazy. And now here
M4: I am, really intrigued about your universal basic income solution.
M5: Well, I'm glad to hear that.
M4: Let's start with that quiet little section passed and Biden's
M4: stimulus package. What is the universal child benefit in that
M4: package that is now part of who we are as Americans?
F8: So this is a very interesting new benefit that Biden's
F8: plan introduced. And essentially it gives the same amount of
F8: money to every child in this country and therefore helps
F8: every family. And what's interesting there is that we had
F8: the child tax credit because it's a tax credit. You
F8: have to owe enough taxes in order to be able
F8: to claim that credit, which means that lower income Americans
F8: would not benefit from that child tax credit.
F10: And so if this new system, it will be more generous.
M6: And most importantly, everybody benefits, including the lowest income people
M6: who arguably the most. We also know from research that
M6: the effect is often most positive for lower income children
M6: as far as improving their health and education.
M4: This is interesting to me. Out of the one point
M4: nine dollars trillion dollar stimulus package, this only accounts for
M4: 100 billion dollars of expense, only one hundred billion.
F5: When did we get to the point of thinking 100
F5: hundred billion is just pocket change?
M4: Well, compared to the roughly five and change trillion that
M4: we've spent on these stimulus packages, we can talk about
M4: 100 billion being comparative pocket change, don't you think, Jane?
F5: I'd say I'd rather compare it to the defense budget.
F5: But no, I don't think it's ever pocket change. OK,
F5: but I think it might be well spent.
M4: You want to. Are you familiar with Representative Rosa DeLauro?
M4: She's from Connecticut and she spent two decades advocating for
M4: this child benefit. And she was the sponsor for this
M4: aspect of the stimulus bill.
F1: This kind of child benefit is extremely common in other countries.
F1: It's not terribly innovative in that sense.
M6: But at the same time, it's innovative in that it
M6: moves us closer to a universal basic income, meaning cash
M6: for all that is the same to all. In this case,
M6: it's for children. But that constitutes an interesting and important advance,
M6: especially because in this country, poverty is especially concentrated among
M6: families with kids.
M4: You know, it's an important kind of a personality change
M4: a little bit for this country, though, we have to admit,
M4: you know, actually, Representative Rosa DeLauro said that this could
M4: be transformative for American families and might be a change
M4: as big as the New Deal or Social Security. She
M4: felt that this is of paramount importance. And it does
M4: seem like a remarkable shift in our personality, one that
M4: I think we can feel pretty good about, but surprisingly, where,
M4: of course, Republicans are taking a more conservative position. Republican
M4: Senator Mitt Romney had a different approach. He proposed a
M4: child benefit that's even larger, but it was going to
M4: be financed differently. Can you explain what that is?
F1: So substantively, the Romney plan in terms of the benefit
F1: it gives to people is very similar to what we
F1: have in the Biden stimulus plan. The main difference is
F1: how we pay for it. The big difference is that
F1: the Romney plan, they try to come up with a
F1: pay for meaning, a way that every year the government
F1: can actually finance this through various sources. One big one
F1: is rearranging benefits for poor families, for example, by ending
F1: welfare completely and instead it goes into this child benefit.
F1: So that's one big ticket item. And part of the
F1: plan is by raising taxes on higher income individuals a
F1: little bit. And the main aspect of that in that
F1: plan is the repeal of the salt deduction, which is
F1: a state and local tax deduction that people can claim
F1: to lower their federal taxes.
F2: So and typically this would be around your property taxes.
F2: I just want to make this concrete for our listeners.
F2: You know, you pay your property tax, it's it goes
F2: to your local governments, OK? And we have this deduction.
F2: You can say, oh, I paid this to my local government,
F2: so therefore I can deduce that from what I owe
F2: for my federal taxes. So that allows me to pay less.
M4: But you want to it's not just the real estate tax,
M4: it's your state tax. And I'm not that rich. But
M4: I can tell you that it bothers me to pay
M4: federal income tax percentage on the tax that I give
M4: my state. It seems wrong to me.
F2: Sure. I mean, this is I'm not trying to debate
F2: here if the system is fair or not, but Romney
F2: wants to cut that out. And the net effect is
F2: that rich people end up paying more taxes. That's all
F2: I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to debate if
F2: it's good or bad to cut it, but I'm just
F2: in terms of the who is that hurting to their
F2: pocket is higher income people who already pay higher state
F2: and local taxes. No, they can no longer use it.
F2: And as a result, that means the federal government gets
F2: more money into their coffers because there's no longer this deduction.
F2: And that's all I'm trying to say here.
M4: You want to last time you sold me on the
M4: whole concept of universal basic income, I became somewhat obsessed. Nice.
M4: Let's call it UBI Universal Basic Income. How is UBI
M4: different from this child benefit? And is this child benefit
M4: a good first step?
M5: The key difference is that it would be for everybody,
M5: not just for kids. So similarly, a UBI would carry
M5: this principle to every person in the US. Every person
M5: gets a certain amount no matter what, no strings attached.
M5: So that's the difference with the child benefit. I will
M5: note that some plans like the YÁNG Plan for Universal
M5: Basic Income actually doesn't go to children, but only to adults.
M5: So that there's lots of designs like that about UBI
M5: that you can think about. But I think that it's
M5: actually very important that money goes to children because of
M5: the importance of supporting poor kids. And we know from
M5: research that the money makes a huge difference to their
M5: education and health outcomes and therefore later on wait for it.
M5: That allows people to pay more taxes and contribute to
M5: society meaningfully over the life course. So it's a very
M5: good investment from an economic perspective to make sure that
M5: we are building peoples, as we call it, as human
M5: capital so that they can be productive citizens over their
M5: life course. So I think that the idea of making
M5: sure that kids get this benefit is quite important.
M3: Let's get back into your definition of the universal basic income.
M3: Who gets it? How much is it? And then we're
M3: going to get into how much does it cost and
M3: what does it do for us?
F1: So the fundamental definition of a universal basic income is
F1: that every person gets the same amount no matter what.
M5: So you don't have to have low income. You don't
M5: have to work or not work or be disabled or
M5: not do whatever it is. Everybody gets the same amount,
M5: no strings attached. So that's that's the idea. Then how much?
M5: That depends, because there's different plans where people arrive at
M5: different amounts. And frankly, there isn't necessarily a technical reason
M5: why this specific amount is definitely the best. It's partly
M5: a matter of political decision making.
M4: Well, how much does it have to be to get
M4: people off of the poverty floor?
M5: So just as an example, Andrew, plan, you know, so
M5: Yanguas candidate in the primary for the Democratic Party with
M5: his plan that he was proposing his guaranteeing twenty four
M5: thousand dollars per year per person per adult, that's one
M5: example that people have proposed. But again, there is no, like,
M5: intrinsic definition of how much is going to be you know,
M5: this is something that different plans would have slightly different
M5: amounts will be right back.
F12: On medicine, we're still practicing join Dr. Stephen Tayback and
F12: Bill Kurtis for real conversations with the medical professionals who
F12: have their finger on the pulse of health care in
F12: the modern world available on all your favorite podcasting platforms
F12: produced by Kerkow media.
M4: Andrew Yang's plan is guaranteeing twenty four thousand dollars per year,
M4: just for argument's sake, let's use that figure. We're having
M4: that go to what are the 240 million adults right
M4: now in the country? Probably something like that. You're saying
M4: it's without obligation and it's an unconditional cash transfer. That's right.
M4: What do you mean by unconditional?
F1: Unconditional is by contrast with some benefits that come with
F1: certain things that you have to do in order to
F1: get it. So as an example, I also study unemployment
F1: insurance benefits and the definition of unemployment insurance is just
F1: to make it simple. Two things. First of all, you
F1: have to be unemployed. So if you get another job,
F1: you're losing your benefits. So as an example and secondly,
F1: you have to search for a job if you're just
F1: sitting there and doing nothing, you're not supposed to be
F1: getting unemployment benefits, just as an example. And UBI, no
F1: matter if you have a job or not, you're searching
F1: or not. You have kids or you don't, it's always
F1: there for you.
M3: Why can't we say in order to get this money,
M3: you have to give us two days a month to
M3: do whatever you're good at? It could be helping us
M3: clean up the beach. It could be building a road.
M3: It could be helping teach people a language. Why is
M3: that something you don't think is fair?
F2: It's not necessarily. I say it really depends on what's
F2: your key goal. And with this policy. And some of
F2: it is philosophical considerations, but however good that could be,
F2: there's different considerations that have to do with efficiency, meaning.
F2: And then how much are you going to get out
F2: of those extra hurdles? So for one thing, is this
F2: the best way to incentivize productive community engagement? Maybe if
F2: the program is well designed, but it could be. And
F2: we've all been there. Some of these programs are kind
F2: of just a bureaucracy kind of thing that you have
F2: to say you did. But in fact, it's not really
F2: effective at generating truly socially useful engagement.
M4: Yeah, well, we could have another show to talk about
M4: whether or not a program that is run by the
M4: government can be efficient in any way.
F2: The other thing is that how much would that actually
F2: achieve in terms of potentially putting off some people and
F2: the right people? Because potentially we're making people jump through
F2: extra hoops. You might be ending up not giving the
F2: income to those who need it the most. And there's
F2: some evidence, you know, going into that direction that as
F2: you make requirements more complicated, it can, in fact, end
F2: up with those who need the things the most not
F2: getting it. I understand the sentiment behind it, but what
F2: does it really add compared to the extra complexity that
F2: it introduces into the scheme? Because the beauty of a
F2: universal basic income and that's something that Mitt Romney is proposing,
F2: I think it's fascinating. He wants Social Security to be
F2: paying it out up front. But if you have conditions,
F2: that kind of simplicity goes a little bit out of
F2: the window, because then you have to check on people,
F2: monitor them, make sure they file their something, something something
F2: for qualifying. So, again, I mean, it depends on your priorities,
F2: but I invite you to ask yourself how much would
F2: truly be gained versus, you know, these other administrative burdens,
F2: efficiency and the potential for deterring people who actually should
F2: be getting the income.
F5: Is it fair to think about a universal basic income
F5: as Social Security for everyone? Once you reach retirement age,
F5: whether you work or not, you're entitled to your Social
F5: Security check?
F2: That's right. That's one way to think about it. Exactly.
F5: And what did Mitt Romney say about the relationship to
F5: Social Security?
F3: He proposed that the child allowance be paid by the
F3: Social Security Administration, I say.
F5: And is that what's happening or it's not right now?
F1: No, but it's an interesting way because obviously the Social
F1: Security Administration is well equipped to pay out that cash
F1: benefits to many people. So that would probably be an
F1: efficient way of going about it.
M4: Jane. Currently, the child benefit is only one year long
M4: and it's just kind of being tacked on to five
M4: trillion dollars of other stimulus that have been thrown into
M4: a burden of our national debt. But in reality, everybody
M4: who has been sponsoring that aspect of the stimulus wants
M4: to find a way to keep that on going. And
M4: once it's on going, you have to figure out a
M4: way to pay for it. That's where Mitt Romney's concept
M4: comes in, potentially. Let's talk dollars and cents here. You
M4: want to we have had five trillion dollars in stimulus.
M4: We're talking about the universal basic income, probably costing about
M4: two point eight trillion dollars a year. So it's expensive.
M4: But at the same time, you're talking about eliminating the
M4: trillion dollars worth of welfare because this kind of brings
M4: up everybody to a certain level. So at the end
M4: of the day, you're talking about give or take one
M4: point seven or so trillion dollars of additional expense. Let's
M4: talk about how are you going to pay for it
M4: and what it would mean to you. I know you
M4: have a little slide rule over there so that you
M4: can tell us what something caused. If I make 100000
M4: dollars in income and I like the idea of never
M4: having to hear about a starving American again, how much
M4: does it cost me to accomplish that?
F5: Before you go there, Bill, for your estimate, how much
F5: UBI is given?
M4: It's the 24000 Yang program.
F4: I invite our listeners to go to UPI calculator dot com,
F4: for example, if your two adults, working age adults making
F4: hundred thousand dollars with the bank plan, you actually don't
F4: pay anything. You're making an extra almost fifteen thousand dollars
F4: a year. So you're not getting the full twenty four
F4: thousand year additional tax would be about 9000 dollars.
M4: But you're getting 24000 dollars and benefit by being an
M4: adult in America. That's exactly right. OK, so let's take
M4: it up. The guy who makes a half a million dollars. Right.
M4: So this guy is living pretty well already, paying a
M4: fair amount of tax. What's it going to cost for
M4: that guy to never have to hear about a starving
M4: American again?
F4: So in this case, if you're two adults with 500000
F4: income with the plan, you're going to be paying on
F4: that about eighteen thousand dollars, 18000 dollars.
M4: So you're going to get 24000, but you're going to
M4: be paying you're going to be paying about forty two
M4: thousand dollars. So I've got to take it up another
M4: notch if I make a million dollars. Thank you very much.
F4: Under Yang's plan, it would be on that paying seventy
F4: thousand dollars more in taxes.
M4: So seven percent for someone who makes a million dollars.
M4: So once you start getting to that level of income,
M4: you're paying some real money in order to not have
M4: to hear about anybody starving in the country again. That's right.
M4: When you talk about seven percent still seems like a
M4: fair trade when you think about it, because it is
M4: Social Security for all.
F5: Is this going to come with a call for eliminating
F5: Social Security as we know it today?
F4: Right now, you know, as you look at the plan,
F4: is it has a bunch of somewhat complicated components, but
F4: a big way that it's paying for this is with
F4: a value added tax.
F5: Oh, my God. All this talk about additional taxes that
F5: each of us may have to pay to do it.
F5: Value added tax is not only extremely costly up and
F5: down the food chain, but it is politically the most
F5: addictive tax you can put in the hands of a politician.
F5: Any country that's ever introduced a value added tax, you
F5: end up with 15 percent, 18 percent, 21 percent. It's ugly.
F5: I just don't think we should go there in the
F5: United States. That's one of my few real tough hurdles.
F5: If we can pay for it some other way, fine. Plus,
F5: the United States that would end up to be a
F5: federal value added tax on top of state and local
F5: sales taxes.
M4: So just to be clear, while the Yáng plan has
M4: different styles of taxes where the net would be for
M4: the million dollar guy, they were paying 70000 dollars for this,
M4: for the half million dollar guy. They were paying eighteen
M4: thousand dollars for this, for the hundred thousand dollar guy.
M4: They actually were net positive on this plan. And there's
M4: a variety of ways where that can be taxed. But
M4: I just wanted to make sure our listeners understand what
M4: it costs them to never have to hear about a
M4: starving American again.
M1: And then with that, we'll be back in 30 seconds
M1: and we'll be asking Dr. Marinescu to take the other
M1: side and argue against her own package. We'll be right back.
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M4: OK, Doctor, what are some of the credible arguments against
M4: either the universal child benefit or the universal basic income concept?
F3: So I really think that the key counter arguments that
F3: someone may have really has to do with targeting and
F3: with the idea of having a smaller program that really
F3: is directed at certain categories of people who clearly are
F3: in need. And so I think that there's a conception
F3: that that's a better idea. And it could be argued
F3: for two reasons. One is you might want to keep
F3: a very small government. Secondly, you really want to make
F3: sure that the money only goes to certain categories of
F3: individuals that you have determined should be getting help. So
F3: that's one perhaps more conservative argument. Now, from a more
F3: progressive side argument, you might want to say, let's keep
F3: it really targeted because the overall cost that it looks
F3: like it's costing and if you look at the whole
F3: benefit could be smaller. And at least for the people
F3: who are more in need, we can potentially give them
F3: more this way by not spreading it thin over more people.
F3: These arguments around targeting, in my view, and I will
F3: add also the difficulty of potentially raising taxes, as we
F3: have discussed, in order to finance this kind of universal payment. Right.
F3: You would probably have to raise taxes somewhere, especially if
F3: you don't want people to be worse off. Right. Because
F3: I just want to explain something that's very simple but critical.
F3: If you just take the current benefits to poor people,
F3: all the ways that we help them, you take that
F3: out and you spread it over everybody. Obviously, that's going
F3: to make them lose out, OK? And that's very important
F3: to understand, because I'm taking a pot of money that
F3: right now is going to the needy and I'm spreading
F3: it over everyone. So if you want to have Universal,
F3: you can't just do that. You could do some of that.
F3: So repurpose some of the money that is going to
F3: the poor. But you also have to somehow raise taxes.
F3: That could be complicated. It's not impossible. I think the
F3: smart things that one could try, but it could be complicated.
F3: And so therefore, someone who is progressive and wanting to
F3: be realistic might want to say, hey, like, you know,
F3: let's make sure we keep our help relatively generous, but
F3: only targeted to certain categories of the population. So we
F3: don't have to deal with the issue of how are
F3: we going to raise additional money in order to get
F3: that done. So to me, those and I try to
F3: make the argument both from a more conservative and more
F3: progressive viewpoint. I think the targeting to me is the
F3: fundamental issue to think about. Do we care enough about
F3: this idea of universality that we want to push strong
F3: for that versus this more targeted versions of the social
F3: safety net?
F5: And by targeted, you mean largely means testing or disability?
F2: Yeah, means or categorical disability, etc..
M4: So obviously the taxes is an issue, although we've gone
M4: over that and what it would cost and whether or
M4: not that's a good balance. But you also have inflation worries, right,
M4: with something like this.
F4: Right. So that I don't think that's an issue. We
F4: don't have a lot of evidence about it, but the
F4: evidence we have is pretty convincing in that people have
F4: looked at poor countries.
F9: And the reason why it's interesting is because there you
F9: can give people a lot of money compared to the
F9: income and see, you know, it should do something quite generous.
F9: What will happen to the local economy. So what they've
F9: shown there is that there was no effect on prices
F9: in those villages in poor countries. And the only time
F9: when there was an effect was in the absolutely most
F9: remote villages. And that's because this most remote villages would
F9: find it hard to bring in additional products and so
F9: on to markets. Right. But almost in no case there
F9: was a price increase in those studies in poor countries.
F9: And I think that's very reassuring because villages, it's not
F9: easy to get there. So if even they're in a
F9: relatively close the economy, you don't see a significant price increase. Instead,
F9: there was an increase in economic activity.
M3: Just to clarify for a second for our listeners, define
M3: what causes inflation.
F3: Broadly speaking, inflation occurs when there is an increase in
F3: the amount of money in the economy relative to the
F3: amount of goods and services that you can buy with
F3: that money. So, you know, to think of it, most
F3: simply assume that the amounts of goods and services that
F3: are produced stay constant. They stay the same, and then
F3: somehow the Fed pours in a whole bunch of additional money.
F3: But again, remember, the amounts of goods and services you
F3: can buy stayed the same. Well, what's going to happen
F3: then is that everybody wants to buy more stuff because
F3: now they have more money, but the amount of stuff
F3: is the same. So that pushes prices up because whoever
F3: is selling the stuff, seeing all these customers trying to buy,
F3: naturally having some incentive to raise prices. And so that's
F3: basically how inflation occurs by. More money chasing a limited
F3: amount of goods and services.
M3: Does that include a head of lettuce and a dozen eggs?
F1: That and everything else, real estate, you name it, all
F1: the things in the economy.
F9: However, of course, that's an assumption that the amount of
F9: goods and services stays fixed. And the critical question for
F9: us economists is, if there's more money in the economy,
F9: could it be that the amounts of goods and services
F9: also increases? And as long as the amounts that we
F9: can spend on increase in a commensurate way with the
F9: amount of money in the economy, there will be inflation
F9: because essentially more people want to buy. But people who
F9: produce more widgets and so prices don't go up, it's
F9: just that there's more widgets being produced. And essentially what
F9: the resistance to show is that mostly it's that second
F9: way that generally speaking, in the recent times and based
F9: on many experiments usually and there is a limit to
F9: that just to be clear, but essentially for small increases
F9: in money, typically you don't see inflation because instead more
F9: stuff is being produced in order to satisfy, you know,
F9: the idea. I also want to say a very critical
F9: thing with your budget. If it's a fully financed, you know,
F9: public deficit, it's completely with repurposing benefits, increasing taxes and
F9: so on.
F10: There is no increase in the money in circulation because
F10: what's your guess on the one hand is being taken away,
F10: on the other hand, either by cuts in benefits or
F10: by higher taxes or, God forbid, more efficient government spending.
M4: But I know that's a tall order.
F5: Yeah, Bill, I don't think you could finance it completely
F5: with finding inefficiencies in government spending. No, but partially. Partially.
F5: But you want to go with what you just talked about.
F5: Would you support eliminating Social Security or combining Social Security
F5: with all this?
F9: So, you know, I think that we have to think
F9: carefully about are there certain things, especially if we're considering
F9: a somewhat generous UBI and what is that? It will
F9: depend on who you're talking to. Are there things that
F9: are reasonable to eliminate because of that? And this is
F9: always in debate. But for example, you might think that
F9: things like food stamps or cash like might reasonably be
F9: eliminated with a system like that. What is clearly shouldn't
F9: eliminate is social insurance, social insurance that insures against bad
F9: stuff that could happen to you, such as you lose
F9: your job. OK, then you want to have an amount
F9: that kind of is good enough to cover your usual expenses.
F9: This UBI is just a minimum. But if you're a
F9: middle class person who loses their job, social insurance is
F9: there to make sure that, you know, you have a
F9: reasonable income stream where you're looking for a new job.
F9: Similarly with health insurance. Oh, my God, this could lead
F9: to catastrophic financial problems if you fall onto a bad
F9: health condition so you don't want to take away health insurance.
F9: The insurance is critical here.
F5: Just because we have a UBI, I'd say there's a
F5: good case to be made about replacing all forms of
F5: welfare with UBI concept. It's inefficient when you have aid
F5: to dependent children here, food stamps there. I think it
F5: makes a lot of sense.
M3: And that's a trillion dollar savings gene.
F5: Right. And I think that that basically there's a lot
F5: to be said for it. But I'm also someone who
F5: believes that all these great ideas are nothing more than
F5: talking points unless you get them adopted. And so for
F5: that reason, I would favor more of a means testing approach.
F5: In fact, radically, I would have favored means testing for
F5: Social Security very generously. But so that's a different that's
F5: a change in the contract. The social contract that we
F5: had back during the New Deal to get Social Security
F5: was you will put your money away and you will
F5: get your money back. And they created, quote, the Social
F5: Security Trust Fund, which, of course, is a joke because
F5: they keep reading it for the general revenue. So what
F5: we would finally do is come to an awareness that
F5: that was a fiction that's never really been practiced. And
F5: what Social Security is really about is providing the elderly
F5: who need that support, universal basic income with means testing,
F5: with the universal basic income.
M4: Jane, you're going to end up having to sell a
M4: much higher tax cost to people who have money, and
M4: it's going to be a lot harder.
F5: I'm not so sure, Bill.
M4: Well, then define what you mean by means testing income
M4: above a certain level.
F5: And it should be very generous.
M4: There's no need there's no need to pay them, but
M4: you're still going to tax them. So it's going to
M4: cost them more money in the end. And as a politician,
M4: you're going to get killed.
F2: You'd have to run the numbers. So I just want
F2: to make sure that everybody understands that with most of
F2: the plans that people propose the way if it's fine.
F10: So let the Senate finance the ones that, you know,
F10: somehow find a way to pay for it. Most of
F10: them come with a system such that high income households
F10: pay more than what they get from the UBI. And
F10: so one way to perhaps kind of try to get
F10: out of that, we. Looking like you're increasing taxes is
F10: to only give people the net, there's two ways of
F10: doing a UBI where people end up in the same place.
F10: One way is everybody gets their twenty four thousand dollars,
F10: let's let's say, and then they're asked to pay a
F10: certain amount of taxes. That overall is going to finance that.
F10: And then it's very apparent. Well both you get your benefit,
F10: but at the same time your taxes might look high
F10: because you have to pay for that or instead. And
F10: that's more similar. Would look more similar to what you're saying, Jane,
F10: is you only get the net. So, you know, we're
F10: looking at your tax liability minus your twenty four thousand
F10: dollars and whatever that is, you know, you just get
F10: the net. And depending on how it's done politically that
F10: they use the net might seem more appealing because it
F10: doesn't look like taxes have increased so much and it
F10: looks more like a targeted benefit because then the lower
F10: income you have, you get a benefit. If you're high up,
F10: you know, you might see an increase in your taxes.
F5: And the simple reality is you have to find a
F5: lot less money to finance a means tested UBI that
F5: sets a simple reality.
M4: And as long as nowhere in the system does it
M4: result in motivating someone not to work. OK, because some
M4: of the means test that we have had in other
M4: programs like unemployment actually inspire someone to work less. And
M4: that's not what we're trying to do here.
F10: What we're trying to have, ideally, is a tax rate
F10: that is somewhat smooth. So you don't want to have that.
F10: Once you reach a certain income, you know, your whole
F10: benefit is taken away from you because that creates not
F10: only bad incentives, but unfairness. Right. Because somebody else think
F10: about the fairness. Somebody is bettering themselves a little bit
F10: and you're telling them to bad for you. We're going
F10: to take away your little benefit now that you're just
F10: slightly better off. So that's why you want to have
F10: something that's a little bit smooth, maybe that getting less,
F10: but it's not like just a little bit more income
F10: is going to make you completely drop off your benefit.
F10: And again, a UBI with a tax system that supports
F10: it would very much look like that, especially if you're
F10: just paying the net, whether it's, you know, how much
F10: you buy minus the tax liability, it would result in
F10: lower income people getting something. And as you go further
F10: up the income distribution, you'll be paying something. So either
F10: does just some things to consider.
M4: So this is going to have to do it for
M4: part one of the Yoanna Marinescu. Meet me in the middle.
M4: We're going to come back next week and talk about
M4: something equally as challenging. And we're also going to have
M4: our Lightning Round, which I know people like. We'll talk
M4: to you about that next week. You want to. And Jane,
M4: thank you so much. You want to. How can people
M4: follow you?
F3: You can follow me on Twitter at Emiliana. So am I.
F3: And wonderful.
M3: Don't forget to hit the follow button so you don't
M3: have to hunt around to find next week's Meet Me
M3: in the Middle.
M2: And thank you to our producer, Joey Salvinia. Music for
M2: Meet Me in the Middle is composed and performed by
M2: Celeste Anorectic. And our executive producer for this episode is
M2: Stuart Halpern and Joey Holt. The music for just a
M2: second here on Meet Me in the Middle.
M3: We listen before we blow a gasket. So give me
M3: a minute. On just the other side. We all know
M3: that we've got to work to make America a better
M3: place for all of our citizens. We know that. We
M3: know that at most times progress cost money. Most of
M3: us are willing to make a reasonable sacrifice, but not
M3: if you make people who make money and employ people
M3: feel alienated. Politicians love to use rhetoric like make rich
M3: people pay their fair share. Now, that's a way to
M3: get elected. But that's a stupid statement. The suggestion that
M3: high income earners who make 400000 dollars don't pay way
M3: higher percentages of tax than someone making 50000 dollars is ridiculous. Yeah,
M3: I know the stories of multibillionaires who avoid tax altogether,
M3: but most high income earners pay their fair share percentage
M3: wise and more so. Here's a thought. Instead of just
M3: taking or picking the pockets of wealthy people, which anyone
M3: would resist, they'd hire accountants to figure out sideways out
M3: of paying. Let's find a way to motivate, inspire and appreciate.
M3: Let high tax payers see and feel the product of
M3: their donation. I've been to so many charity events, like,
M3: for example, the Napa Valley wine auction that raises like
M3: fifteen million dollars a year where for each of 100
M3: auction lots, people donate hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of
M3: dollars to kids and schools and hospitals. Why do those
M3: people donate? Well, first, it's done in front of all
M3: their friends. And so sometimes they even compete with each
M3: other to see who can donate more. Second, Napa Valley
M3: makes it fun. Third, it makes people feel good. Nobody takes.
M3: It's just given and it's celebrated, maybe we need to
M3: learn something from Nappa rather than just creating a powerful
M3: resistance by rich people because we're just taking and we're
M3: vilifying them at the same time. Perhaps we should try.
M3: Inspiring for a change would be a good change. Maybe
M3: we could then fund something like the universal basic income.
M1: We'll see you next week. Everybody will be.
F11: From Kerkow media media for your mind.