Universal Basic Income
Universal Basic Income
Hi! Happy Thursday!
This is an open letter to Andrew Yang about universal basic income, or UBI. Andrew is running as a Democrat for President in 2020 on this single issue of a $1,000/month for all Americans. I applaud this effort! Democracy innovation is much needed today! Our system is broken! I share this spirit con mucho gusto, with much gusto!
I also have a Democracy innovation platform, Irreni World Scale. Irreni is a large laundry list of Democracy innovations that depend on new technology tools. We are looking for funding to the tune of $300,000/year to begin work.
Universal Basic Income doesn't happen in a political vacuum. To the extent that Republicans pay any attention to the UBI campaign is the extent they will rail against free hand-outs, just like they perceive any government assistance or increases in minimum wage.
I'd like to help. I'd like to make UBI a reality.
This essay is about achieving full-country support with bi-partisan support for UBI. Tough love needs to be applied with conservatives by negotiating the hand-up versus hand-out dynamics by considering managed UBI. The objective of full-country support would ensure UBI gets a fair trial where today the ACA is being undermined by conservatives at every turn because the ACA was passed without a single Republican vote. The goals of UBI must be to garner full-country support and not just Democratic support.
The main thesis here is we need full-country support. Full-country support goes beyond just bi-partisan support within the halls of Washington, out of sight of all but the political class.
This is the thesis of this essay because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. We've seen what single party support has done for health-care. Twice health-care innovation has split exactly on party lines. The first time Hillary Clinton tried health-care reform it failed by one vote back in the mid-1990s. The second time ACA health-care reform passed, but with no Republican votes.
What can we learn from health-care? The Republicans have undermined the ACA at every turn. It is logical to conclude that even if Hillary Clinton had been successful in the mid-1990s the same thing would have happened.
I call this ping-pong politics where as each party regains power then they undermine and negate laws previously passed by single party support. The inherent systemic flaw with ping-pong politics is that large-scale legislation takes far longer to play out then ping-pong politics can allow such legislation to succeed.
Suggestion One - Seventy-Five Vote Rule
The first suggest for UBI to succeed is to get Democrats and Republicans to voluntarily agree to the rule of Seventy-Five. This rule simply says that the party in power has to whip seventy-five percent of the House or Senate to support or bill or the bill will not be advanced.
The rule of Seventy-File ensures that UBI cannot suffer from the same fate as the ACA where if by some chance Democrats do pass it then Republicans weaken it, undermine it, and negate it.
So how do we get the Republicans on-board?
Suggestion Two - Tough Love Of Rugged Individualism
I have a plan. The first prong of Republican buy-in is tough love of rugged individualism. We have to call them out on one of the most fundamental flaws of their ideology: rugged individualism.
Republicans are all about rugged individualism, pull yourself by your bootstraps. Therefore when it comes to things like UBI, minimum wage increases, or government assistance they balk at group support. Make no mistake about it, rugged individualism is all-American and not just Republican. Rugged individualism is the very sweat in the pores of our form of Democracy. The two-hundred-year result has seen a break-down of social groups, the break down of it-takes-a-village community in favor of rugged individualism. The prism of rugged individualism and self independence we value so much has meant the demise of State community, of city community, neighborhood community, and finally the break-down of the American family. We no longer take care of our elderly and we put them in nursing homes. It is fair to ask then do we care we are a Californian? A New Yorker? A neighbor? a family? It is also accurate to answer these questions with "No".
Rugged individualism is at odds with good moral human behavior. Of the three things that our brains affords us it is social group benefit that is at odds with rugged individualism. Rugged individualism undermines our very nature, our social-group brains.
We need tough love of rugged individualism.
How?
Rugged individualism is at the very heart of a central conservative question: a hand-out or a hand-up?
Republican ideology claims to support a hand up, not a UBI hand out. We need to bridge these two. The way to do this is to point out that a hand up requires the government. Corporations have proven over the last two-hundred years that their profit motive only extends to society hand-up as a near-term vision. Corporations are not investing in our communities today with long-term endeavors of training and re-tooling our society for the new economy. This is because corporations are only concerned about quarter-to-quarter reporting, quarter-to-quarter profit. Investing in something as long term as education over many years is not done. Bill Gates is just as famous for lamenting the lack of an educated workforce for Microsoft as he is not famous having Microsoft implement technology education in any meaningful way.
No, if we are going to give a UBI hand-up to Americans instead of a UBI hand-out in this information age then that hand-up must come from the government. However, the Republicans don't trust the government. And therein lies the rub. To whit, the Republicans have trapped themselves in a contradiction where they cannot support a hand-up because they don't support government help.
This is the tough love that needs to happen. We need to call them out on the fact that they cannot support a hand-up because they don't trust the government. Corporations have no track record in U.S. history of ever providing society a hand up. Quite the opposite, corporations march forward with unabated zeal pursuing automation and AI knowing full well the increased negative impacts on jobs and society. Think about it, if we cannot rely on corporations to even slow down for just a nanosecond their new profits squeezed from social negativity, how can we have any expectation corporations spending money on long-term hand-up programs?
No, the long-term hand-up programs must be administered by the government.
We must engage Republicans with tough love to say which is it: a hand-up or a hand-out? If the answer is hand-up then they must support government programs as the hand-up.
Suggestion Three - Hand Up UBI
Hand-up UBI is government managing the money spent.
Here are some suggestions to meet Republicans with on middle ground to garner there buy in:
- National kitchens
- Monitored spending
- Two-person spending
- MGO spending
- Debt forgiveness
National Kitchens
We have SNAP today in the form of credit cards that recipients can use at the first of the month to buy groceries at Walmart and such. Republicans have long railed against this kind of system because of what they perceive has rampant abuse. Why don't we just feed people instead of giving them money today? Presumably because Republicans don't trust the government and don't want some new government department feeding people. The government is the enemy to Republicans, another tough love topic. Further, allowing people to spend cash supports free market capitalism where the money is spent at Walmart.
National Kitchens is a great hand-up program to debate tough love, rugged individualism. Do you want a hand-up or a hand-out? National kitchens like Army mess halls would provide daily scheduled free meals for all Americans. Assuming we spend on average per person $10/meal, or $30/day, then that works out to $900/month of UBI hand-up. So Republicans, which would you prefer, hand-up or hand-out? The Army already has the knowledge to feed millions every day.
Monitored Spending
Give every American a dedicated smart phone for UBI funds payments.
We want receipts.
Every dime spent will be accounted for in real-time at the national level. We can use the mighty, mighty power of a modern AI to optimize money spent.
Along with monitoring we can white list or black list any item. But smart phones would give us much more opportunity than that. We could create real-time spot markets of purchase. We could have flash buys of opportunity where users get alerts about items not normally available become available due to some timing of temporary price decreases. The government could chose to do spot buys of bulk items and give things away as well, I'm thinking specifically of food here.
Two-person Spending
Conservative media is rife with stories of people abusing government money. There is a further section that addresses such abuse where two-person spending is one solution.
Two-person spending just means that someone like say a drug addict is forced to have their funds spent by a second person. This alleviates concerns concerns that conservatives will raise about funds being spent on drugs and alcohol.
MGO Spending
MGO stands for "micro-modular governing organization", a innovation central to Irreni World Scale. Irreni World Scale furthers the notion of container-ship, modular success by applying modular group containers to governing. MGOs are containers comprised of thirty people. These thirty people form a corporation of mutual social interest primarily, capitalist interest secondary. The UBI model then would be that each MGO gets $30,000/month free-and-clear. The MGOs like any corporation must have a set of by-laws. These by-laws are voted on its members to dictate how the money is spent.
Irreni turns the rugged individualism ship of America and points it back to the "it-takes-a-village" direction of social group benefit. We must jump-start community.
Debt Forgiveness
Debt is the elephant in the room for UBI. Student loan and consumer credit-card debt are the albatross around our neck. The debt forgiveness plan would negotiate the monthly payment to pay off debts at a smaller percentage of the debt amount in exchange for guaranteed payments.
Debt is a huge topic that needs to be addressed. Our economy has been sculpted to encourage people to rely on debt. This needs to change. We need to reconfigure our Democracy away from easy debt in order for UBI to be optimally effective. Debt forgiveness is just a band-aid.
Suggestion Four - Abuse Force
The abuse force is my least favorite but may be the most attractive for conservatives. The abuse force becomes a new department of every police force today. The abuse force is funded by the Federal government. The abuse force arrests people for abusing the hand out. Examples of historical, government assistance abuses include:
- Social security check fraud. People steal or abscond with vulnerable elderly people's social security money. UBI will be subject to this fraud as well. Elderly people are especially vulnerable.
- Substance abuse fraud. People get around black lists of items that cannot be purchased by trade or selling their funds at a discount for cash.
- Death fraud. People die but their funds are spent. The monitored spending solution above could remedy this by requiring biometrics like a thumb print on each purchase.
- Foster kids. Do we really want people to be foster parents just for the sole purpose of receiving the child's benefits? This is going to be a huge problem with possibly unintended negative consequences on foster kids as people who just want the money abuse fostering and subsequently the kids just for the money.
Suggestion Five - Republican Counterpart
Will UBI garner enough national support to ensure a national stage at future Presidential debates? The Democrats are notorious for shutting out third-party candidates at Presidential debates due to a lack of voting.
I suggest taking matters into your own hands. Enlist a Republican counter-part to run on the UBI platform. This will provide a continuous stage of debates in addition to an alternate debate stage if excluded at the national level. I'm thinking someone like Peter Theil. The Republican needs to be someone that the conservatives supporting Trump will invest in.
In addition to providing a stage of debate the Republican counterpart can also be platform for the Seventy-Five rule. We need full-country support.
Final Point
This essay is about achieving full-country support with bi-partisan support for UBI. Tough love needs to be applied with conservatives by negotiating the hand-up versus hand-out dynamics by considering managed UBI. The objective of full-country support would ensure UBI gets a fair trial where today the ACA is being undermined by conservatives at every turn because the ACA was passed without a single Republican vote. The goals of UBI must be to garner full-country support and not just Democratic support.
Freethinkers unite!
Freedom!
Party On!
Let's get cracking!
Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!
Politics as Science!
Demand Irreni World Scale!
Anti-theism is feminism!
Think disruption!
Empathy for all!
Moral relativity: think it, breath it!
Prove it or lose it!
Conversations equal consensus!
Welcome to the 21st century!
Scale your empathy, scale the world!
Find your tribe!
Be sexy people!
The future is coming!
Innovate at a rapid pace!
Slow speed ahead!
Well come! and well met!
Comments
Post a Comment