Finland, Finland, Finland: How About a Guaranteed Minimum Income?
Finland, Finland, Finland. The country where I quite want to be.
Finland’s government is drawing up plans to pay every citizen a basic income of euros 800 ($1,165) each month, scrapping benefits altogether.
Under proposals drafted by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela), the tax-free payments would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income.
While it may sound counterintuitive, the basic income is intended to encourage more people back to work in Finland, where unemployment is at record levels. At present, many unemployed people would be worse off if they took on low-paid temporary jobs due to loss of welfare payments.
These days I am generally in the middle of about 30 books at a time. (I never did this before Kindle and audiobooks but it works out.) One of the books I am reading is Charles Murray’s In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State.
Murray proposes that we give everyone a guaranteed minimum income of about $10,000 a year. (Murray wrote the book in 1997.)(Economics nerds will recall that Milton Friedman proposed something very much like this.) Then, Murray says, we would scrap all other transfer payments, period. Something like a third of that is supposed to go to health care. (Well, Mr. Murray, we pretty much did that part with ObamaCare!)
I’m about halfway done and remain utterly unconvinced. But Charles Murray is a very credible writer. (I am also in the middle of Losing Ground, and What It Means to Be a Libertarian is sitting on my shelf, asking what it takes to be part of the 30-book rotation.) I’ll admit that Murray makes some interesting points, even if (halfway in) he has not begun to convince me. If you’re totally committed to ultra-compromise and throwing common-sense principles out the door, he makes a decent case that his system of handouts might be better than the crummy system of handouts we have right now.
But . . . I don’t think so. I’m still trying to keep an open mind, but I’ll admit that the idea of handing people money for nothing — even as a “realistic” alternative to our present welfare system — really rankles.
The part I am waiting to see him address is: what about when people accept your system and then want all the previous benefits back too? Or when they say things like: “How do you expect Americans to live on $10,000 a year?” or other spoiled, entitled crap like that.
I’m happy to see the experiment running in another country. By the time we start to see how it’s working in Finland, I’ll be done with Murray’s book — and I’ll get a chance to whack him across the head for his silly idea . . . or maybe to eat some crow.
I really doubt I’ll be eating any crow. But life is funny. You never know.
(Sorry for all the parentheses in the post.)
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/6/2015 @ 9:34 pmFinland’s government is drawing up plans to pay every citizen a basic income of euros 800 ($1,165) each month, scrapping benefits altogether.
One question I have! Make that two! Is he an idiot, or stupid?
Second, if every citizen that amount does get, where does the money come from to pay them?
Yoda (feee21) — 12/6/2015 @ 9:50 pmThis sincerely Yoda would like to know! A tree that grows money, Yoda has never seen in his 900 + years of age!
Yoda (feee21) — 12/6/2015 @ 9:52 pmSome people (mainly of the left) have theorized that Islamofascist terrorists are forced into acts of bloody violence because of economic deprivation and lack of education. Yet many of the most notorious jihadists have come from surprisingly well-off, well-educated backgrounds.
Some people (mainly of the left) have theorized that black America wouldn’t be beset with so much dysfunction were it not for blatant racism, discrimination and poverty (or the history of slavery several generations ago), ignoring the fact that same segment of the US populace wasn’t such a socio-cultural mess over 60 years ago, when racism, discrimination and poverty were far greater, if not ridiculously blatant, and slavery wasn’t quite as distant a memory.
Giving every person in a society a guaranteed income, and a rather generous one at that, may be okay for the sake of being okay, but should therefore not be theorized as a way to make that society a nicer, happier, better one.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/6/2015 @ 9:54 pmYes, trees grow money in the form of fruit and lumber. And money spouts out of the ground in the form of oil and ores. Over here, Alaska was/is paying each resident a share of the oil revenues. So do Indian Tribes with oilfields.
What to worry about is the increase in the price of labor. Whether picking fruit or digging coal. They won’t be able to hire people anymore for just enough to live on. That cuts into the profits in a big way.
nk (dbc370) — 12/6/2015 @ 10:06 pmAnyhow, it sounds to me like Finland is where we were when Nixon proposed his negative income tax. Back then, it was hard to get on welfare. And because it was hard to get on it, people were afraid to get off it. Because if they lost their jobs or their ability to work, it would be hard to get back on it.
nk (dbc370) — 12/6/2015 @ 10:13 pmthe welfare state is to protect the wealthy helping the poor is a by product. otto von bismarck founder of the welfare state. roosevelt’s new deal you don’t have to shoot or hang the wealthy we can tax them to help run social welfare programs. here stop pointing that gun at rich people reject the communist party and the government will give you a job and food stamps if you don’t shoot the rich. f.d.r.
ott (c59cff) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:35 amIf we could eliminate all forms of welfare including social security and obamaCare, this would have some beneficial aspects.
We’re dumping about $1.5 trillion (or more) into welfare, social security, and Medicaid/medicare. Given that there are about 340 million of us, including illegal aliens, that works out to about $4000 per person per annum. And the total welfare expenditure might be $2 trillion all other things considered. So maybe the number is $5000 per person per annum, meaning a family of 4 would get about $20,000.
The beauty of this idea is that you don’t need all those agencies and bureaucrats. Just think, all those stooges would be let go and they’d be left their stipend of $5000 instead of the $100,000 they’ve become accustomed too. This would play havoc with the SEIU. Not to be overlooked, the recipients don’t have to assume a state of poverty as they do today in order to be eligible for some forms of our current entitlements. So many of them, and there were over 94 million at last count, would go and get a job.
There are only two problems: our open border policy would draw in a billion or more people who would regard this amount as sufficient incentive for walking a few thousand miles; and the same crew that is homeless and apparently in need of a social safety net would be broke three days after the stipend was deposited in their account, and they’d be back on the street demanding more.
And Utopia would still be receding rapidly over the far horizon. We’d still have to get the EPA and bunch similarly meddlesome agencies off our backs.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:47 amI dunno about decreasing unemployment, at least in the US if a similar plan were adopted. Where would all the bureaucrats who administer the current mess of benefits programs find employment?
max (4fdf98) — 12/7/2015 @ 2:08 amYou are forgetting Nixon’s negative income tax that would have guaranteed a minimum income for everyone.
bob sykes (be5b42) — 12/7/2015 @ 4:54 amthe welfare state is to protect the wealthy helping the poor is a by product. otto von bismarck founder of the welfare state. roosevelt’s new deal you don’t have to shoot or hang the wealthy we can tax them to help run social welfare programs. here stop pointing that gun at rich people reject the communist party and the government will give you a job and food stamps if you don’t shoot the rich. f.d.r.
That is true, but the wealth of a nation depends on labor. Woodrow Wilson’s plan was better — make the employers give the white workers better wages and working conditions to have them cheerfully productive, and leave the blacks to do the menial jobs that are below a white man’s dignity or starve.
nk (dbc370) — 12/7/2015 @ 5:13 amThe really big problem nobody wants to address is how to be kind enough support useless people but hard headed enough stop them from having useless children.
Fred Z (5db617) — 12/7/2015 @ 6:21 amOne advantage to universal welfare, combined with a normal, progressive income tax, is that poor people will have to pay very little to the government when they go from being unemployed to getting a (crappy) job, because they will be in a low (or zero) income tax bracket. The way it works in most places now is that if a welfare recipient gets a job he has to pay a lot of welfare money back to the government, placing the poorest people in our country in a nearly 100% income tax bracket.
Put poor people in a low income tax bracket and many more of them will be looking for work.
LTEC (9c117a) — 12/7/2015 @ 6:51 amIf I’m remembering correctly, Murray’s “Losing Ground” has a thought experiment at the end. I found it incredibly illuminating.
Joe Miller (64cdc0) — 12/7/2015 @ 7:07 amAh to be a Finn again
Colonel Haiku (2225ab) — 12/7/2015 @ 7:09 amI”ll never forget to remember when
I pinched the ass of a comely lass
An exchange student in my senior class
The most beautiful girl I’ve ever known
Gave as good as she got my seed was sown
We had us a time the truth be told
But she flew home my tent did fold
Blond hair blue eyes and skin so fair
But I was here and she was there
You all do realize if $1,165 is the minimum one can get then $1,165 effectively becomes Zero. So unless one is earning let’s say twice that or $2,330 it pays to quit. Plus, even if you do earn $2,330 you really only earned $1,165.
You know humanity has built an entire science called Economics to explain why $1,165 should not be Zero yet for some reason certain folks think they can screw with the laws of economics and go unscathed.
Finland has a population of 5.4 million. Let’s say 4 million adults. That’s about the number of aide recipients of one sort or another as the City of New York. That’s not even close to the magnitude of welfare we face in America.
And as Milton Friedman also said, you can’t have immigration along with welfare. People will move here just to get paid. You think we have a problem at the Mexican border now you ain’t seen nothin’.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 7:37 amWhatever happened to that quaint Biblical notion that if you don’t work, you don’t eat? I just love the idea of paying moslem “refugees” $1,165 a month to study who is the next target they’ll kill. It’s bad enough we allow criminals to collect welfare off the wages of their victims now we’re gonna pay them a guaranteed income from the same suckers?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:00 amWhatever happened to that quaint Biblical notion that if you don’t work, you don’t eat?
That was for St. Paul’s kibbutzniks — the members of an early Christian commune in Salonica. Not a rule of broad application. Living next door to a place where “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” resulted in the people saying it having their throats slit, the Finns might assess the needs of their commune differently.
nk (dbc370) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:13 amLet’s see how the Finn’s assess their commune when thousands of Syrians start piling in. I was not even aware if you don’t work, you don’t eat was a rule at all. I just thought it to be a morally just suggestion on how to live ones life i.e. not on someone else’s dime.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:32 amSpeaking of which, perhaps the Finn’s should pay us back for WWII and their national defense since then before they start paying each other to get up in the morning.
You all do realize if $1,165 is the minimum one can get then $1,165 effectively becomes Zero. So unless one is earning let’s say twice that or $2,330 it pays to quit.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 7:37 am
It says: the tax-free payments would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income.
I think that’s to eliminate the disincentive to work.
Since it’s replacing all existing benefits, which I assume are fairly substantial, this seems like a step in the right direction.
Gerald A (5dca03) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:37 amYou believe placing the entire adult population of a country on the dole is a step in the right direction? Then thousand years of human history and the best these geniuses can come up with is universal welfare? Did I accidently open on the HuffPo?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:57 am* That’s “Ten thousand years”.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 8:59 amIf I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’… https://t.co/MTQhP0dlEC
Colonel Haiku (2225ab) — 12/7/2015 @ 9:16 amI was answering your point about how this creates some incentive for people to stop working Mr. Hoagie™. It does not.
Milton Friedman, no leftist, was one of the earliest proponents of the negative income tax, the purpose of which is to rationalize the effect of tax and welfare policies on the incentive to work. As conceived of by Friedman, it would remove things like subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicaid etc.
Gerald A (5dca03) — 12/7/2015 @ 9:49 am“As conceived of by Friedman, it would remove things like subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicaid etc.” That’s your caveat Gerald A and you’re gonna stick with it. Why not the old “living wage” then? Every adult gets $5,000 a month. What’s s special about $1,165? It’s like minimum wage, what’s so special about $15? Why not $50?
Ad when the next election cycle comes around the democrat/socialists can run on raising the Guaranteed Income Act to $2,165 a month. Then $3,165 you see where this is going I hope.
Really? Then when we had over 2 years of unemployment compensation people were running back to work, right? NOT! It is silly for you to insist it won’t stop people from working simply because we both know it will. We just don’t know how many.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 10:25 amYou keep missing the point. If someone goes back to work, they lose their unemployment comp. That’s not how this works.
Gerald A (5dca03) — 12/7/2015 @ 10:33 amGerald A, I think it’s you who are missing the point. As long as people were being paid not to work, supprise! they didn’t. What this will do is have people who earn $1,500 to $2,500 a month deciding if it’s worth the aggravation and expense to go to work or if they can “settle” for $1,165. Remember, two adults in a household $2,330. Three adults $3,495 and so on. So your inner city or trailer trash can pull in 2-4 grand staying home, making babies and smoking pot or your average Syrian terror cell of five adults can pull in $5,825 a month sitting home, making babies and building bombs,
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:02 amWhat we need to do is tell everyone on welfare the gravy train ends 01/01/2017 so make any necessary plans, not figuring how to put the entire phuking country on welfare.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:11 amHoagie, they already are doing that. I think you are really misunderstanding this. People in this country are already being paid not to work. This new system (which, frankly, I don’t much care for) would give everyone (regardless of employment status) $1,165. That means if I have no job, I get $1,165 per month. If I have an $8/hr job, I get $1,386 plus $1,165 per month. It’s certainly worth a second look than your giving it, I think.
Burnside (8fa39f) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:14 amMurray’s idea is a compromise. It’s a welfare state that attempts to respect the autonomy of the individual.
Government aid always has strings attached, it does not respect the autonomy of individuals.
I think if we are going to have government programs to help people, they should just be a check. It saves on bureaucracy too, not attempting to manage people.
If the people who receive this aid spend it all on hookers and blow, and then the pimps and drug dealers spend it all on gold and Lexuses, it would be a morally cleaner and economically saner system than we have today.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:20 am@Patterico: By the time we start to see how it’s working in Finland,
I imagine that just about anything at all could work in Finland, if the Finns put their minds to it. I imagine that any US state with similar demographics and culture could probably do it too, or so could any prosperous blue-state metropolis with similar demographics and culture.
The question is not will it work in Finland, the question is will it work here? The answer is no, not for everywhere and everybody.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:23 amUm, excuse me? What the **** did we do for them in WW2 or since then? We were nice enough not to declare war on them, as our allies did, but we did f*** all for them, and then abandoned them to the USSR’s tender mercies.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:29 am@Burnside:If I have an $8/hr job, I get $1,386 plus $1,165 per month.
I’d like the idea better if it were means tested so that it gradually tapered off, so that there is never a perverse incentive to not work.
Nowadays when you reach an income threshold you fall off a cliff benefit-wise, so that working costs you money.
Would I prefer no sort of social programs? Certainly I would. Will I take half a loaf over none? Indeed I will. I’d far rather see a Murray-style program than what we have now.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:31 am@Rev’m Hoagie:Speaking of which, perhaps the Finn’s should pay us back for WWII and their national defense since then
Have to second Milhouse here and pile on. Rev’m I like your style, even though we rarely agree, but I think here you are way off. We really, really screwed the Finns. We forced them to make the best accomodation they could with Hitler and then we let the Soviet Union take a bunch of their territory too.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:34 amFrom the same place that all the current welfare payments come. Except that this will come to less than them, so that place won’t have to come up with quite as much money. If there weren’t already a massively harmful welfare system in place, nobody would propose this. But as a replacement for the current system it makes sense. Imagine no “community organizers” who know all the programs and how to get people on them. Imagine no 100 different agencies, each fully staffed and with different rules for their handouts. Imagine all the paperwork saved. Just give everyone the same amount, and then tax all income at the same rate. It can’t rankle worse than the current system, and it saves money.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:36 am@Milhouse:But as a replacement for the current system it makes sense.
Not only that, libertarians can get behind it because it does these things:
It is more respectful of people’s freedom. It does not try to control the behavior of the recipients, and does not support a parasitic bureaucracy for the purpose of controlling people.
It is more economically sane. The Rev’m point about $1165 per month becoming the minimum price of everything is a good one, but that is better than the government setting up a bewildering array of regulations, subsidies, taxes and entitlements that distort the whole economy. Expect large surges in the Lexus, gold jewelry, and strip club sectors at first.
It provides an exit strategy. The minimum income can be gradually phased out without discontinuities and disruptions. It does not result in this entrench agglomeration of mutually parasitic interests and government employees who have a lot to lose from the end of the system.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 11:43 amThis can work with one proviso: People on the GAI may not vote.
If GAI recipients can vote, they become a constant voting block to raise the amount. A higher GAI would attract more takers, and the voting block grows. This is called “positive feedback” and is only stable when it pegs the meter.
If they cannot vote, then those paying for the system set the amount. If they set aside too little, people get off the GAI and start voting for larger benefits. If it goes too high, more people go on the GAI and the voting block decreases. This is called “negative feedback” and is how systems are properly controlled.
Now, whether it is a good idea by itself is another question. Medical care costs track medical needs, so older people would benefit less than younger people from this system. This may be a bug or a feature. I presume this only replaces “welfare” and not public insurance benefits like UI or Workman’s Comp, nor publicly administered pensions.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:00 pmNow, I seem to have misread this. They are saying they will give *everyone* this amount instead of just those who opt for it? This means of course that some segment of the population will have their taxes increased by MORE than the amount they get. And no doubt some will be taxed MUCH more.
So, it is still a benefit that only some get, but it is completely muddled up in second-order effects. Something only a politician could love.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:07 pmSlightly off topic …
There was no serious problem with Social Security in 2008. A few nips and tucks to the age schedule to deal with longer lives, and it was fine.
The Obama came along and essentially granted early access to full-social security benefits AND Medicare to anyone over 50 who was unemployed and could make a prima facie claim to being disabled. His people looked at it as a way to lower the unemployment rates, as people on disability are not unemployed. This money comes out of the respective trust funds and has now blown such a hole in each that they are going to have real trouble within 10 years.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:13 pmThen it was not the United States that made food drops over Finland to stave off starvation nor protect Finland under the umbrella of a nuclear Europe during the Cold War. We protected all the other countries just not Finland. Sorry, my bad.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:25 pm@Kevin M:This means of course that some segment of the population will have their taxes increased by MORE than the amount they get. And no doubt some will be taxed MUCH more. So, it is still a benefit that only some get, but it is completely muddled up in second-order effects
Maybe read the book where he explains where the money comes from?
Using the 2015 federal budget categories, add up what the Federal government spends on community development, education, training, social security, health care, income security, medicare. Leave everything else alone. Leave taxes alone.
The total is $2.5 trillion. Divide by 350 million people. You get $7100.
So, ballparking it, no you don’t have to raise taxes, you have to redistribute what is spent now. I didn’t include defense, agriculture, interest on the debt, parks, energy, etc.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:33 pm@Rev’m Hoagie:We protected all the other countries just not Finland.
Finland is not in NATO, so strictly speaking no we didn’t.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:38 pmSo we’re going to do the time consuming and costly duty of filing and paying taxes and the government drones are gonna credit our account (and if practice is any indicator the accounts of ten or fifteen undeclared dependents) for $1,165 on the first of each month with our tax money?
There’s no way to fix any of these things without putting the entire country on welfare in perpetuity?
How is that better? We don’t know if it would or wouldn’t be better we never tried it. The current system blows because of the things you listed and many more but if you believe the government” will lay off one union employee let alone thousands because of this idea I dare think you’re wrong. We will only end up paying for the same number of union thugs doing even less than they do now.
You’re kidding me right Gabriel? Since when does any government plan get phased out? If anything the leftists will be raising it every election. Ad don’t kid yourself thinking they will “phase out” all the current agencies. That would create millions of new Republican voters and diminish the power of the unions. It. Will. Never. Happen.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:42 pmStrictly speaking you are all correct. Once more, I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’m a bad person and a flawed human being.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:46 pm@Rev’m:I’m a bad person and a flawed human being.
You’re hardly unique in that regard.
Ad don’t kid yourself thinking they will “phase out” all the current agencies.
It’s “instead of”, not “on top of”.
The point of the exercise is not to call your Congressman and ask him to put it forward. The point of the exercise is to show that free markets are not incompatible with alleviating poverty.
Such a system would alleviate poverty, and it would be cheaper and more sensible than what we do now, which is dribble the money through the alphabet soup of bureaucracies and end up with something incentivizes social pathologies.
IMagine a family of four, only one parent works, making $10 as say a line cook. That family would live on $20,000 without welfare. With this system they would live on $50,000; AND someone would be home with the kids AND someone would be working.
A family of four does not live lavishly on $50K but thousands of them do, and it’s way better than $20K.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:52 pmJeez I can’t do math. Each of the four gets $10K from the minimum income, and the breadwinner gets $20K from working, so that’s $60 K for a family of four, no other social programs. What else would be needed?
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 12:54 pmGabriel,
As someone who has paid hundreds of thousands into Social Security and Medicare taxes I am deeply offended that you conflate it with welfare. Yes there are problems, and yes, the lying f***s who took this money at gunpoint then squandered much of it ought to be hanged from lampposts (disinterred if needed), but really is not the same thing.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:00 pmWell, as Milhouse said: “It can’t rankle worse than the current system, and it saves money.”. If Patterico, Milhouse and Gabriel Hanna see value in the idea there must be something to it I’m missing. I would like to point out you can’t take the Social Security money as that was already paid in by the recipients for the recipients ( Yes, Milhouse, I know in theory!). I’d be curious to see the actual numbers and an authentic list of agencies and jobs cut.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:00 pmGabriel, I love ya man but it will not alleviate poverty it will just raise the poverty line by $1,165. IOW, cook the books. Which will in fact give leftists more ammunition to raise it to $2,500. Then to $3,750, then….you get it.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:05 pm@Kevin M:As someone who has paid hundreds of thousands into Social Security and Medicare taxes I am deeply offended that you conflate it with welfare.
It was never anything but, and it was sold as not welfare to sucker you, and that’s why it’s not means-tested and everyone has to contribute toward it–exactly how this proposal works.
But this program would be “welfare” to the exact extent that Social Security is. If SS is not welfare, neither is this.
You didn’t “pay in”. You were taxed. The money is not yours, it is derived from taxation like all other spending. If you were “drawing out” what you “paid in” then Social Security would be an annuity, not a government program–and it would be profitable.
the lying f***s who took this money at gunpoint then squandered much of it
Where could they have “put” it? It was taxes. They were taxing you and spending the money, no different from any other taxation and spending. They can’t pile up dollar bills in the treasury vaults and then draw them out later.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:06 pm@Rev’m Hoagie: I’d be curious to see the actual numbers and an authentic list of agencies and jobs cut.
Yeah, I know, if only Murray had written a whole book to explain it. 🙂
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:07 pm@Rev’m:I would like to point out you can’t take the Social Security money as that was already paid in by the recipients for the recipients
Two points:
SS was set up that way to provoke exactly that reaction: it’s mine, I “paid in”, and I deserve the money, it’s not welfare, and it’s not fair to take what’s mine. The Greatest Generation was suckered in believing that.
SS pays out whatever the law says it pays out. It’s a promise, it’s not money. It is a promise to today’s taxpayers that tomorrow they will get some of tomorrow’s tax money. Promises can be broken, and the sovereign can do whatever it likes, the rules are what it syas they are, that’s what “sovereign” MEANS.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:10 pmWhy on earth would children, who pay zero taxes, be given $1,165 per month? Is this turning into another baby-makin’ ploy to build up the democrat /socialist party already before it’s even setup? Let’s see, now who on earth would spit out babies by the millions for money? Who indeed?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:11 pm@Rev’m:Why on earth would children, who pay zero taxes, be given $1,165 per month?
Dunno, why do they get Social Security? Again, this is “welfare” exactly to the extent that Social Security is welfare.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:13 pm@Rev’m, Kevin M:
50% of Medicare in my state is people under retirement age. There are literally 2-year-olds getting it.
It was never the case that “paying in” was the sole criterion for eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. Even before the disability explosion, children were getting both.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:21 pmNo tax increase would be needed, because it would replace all existing welfare programs.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:25 pmGabriel,
Your idea will not work if the recipients can vote. IT. WILL. NOT. WORK. Things that are not means-tested need to be limited in other ways (e.g. over 65) or you have such an incredible block of people who discover they can simply vote themselves more money.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:28 pm@Kevin M: you have such an incredible block of people who discover they can simply vote themselves more money.
Thank God there’s no such bloc now.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:31 pmWhat are you talking about? When did this happen?
That’s right. We protected our NATO allies. We did nothing at all to protect Finland, which we regarded as part of the USSR’s sphere of influence.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:32 pmI was unaware children get SS, I never got it. I thought it was for over 62 or 65 people and the disabled.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:32 pmNo tax increase would be needed, because it would replace all existing welfare programs.
But you call SS and Medicare welfare, when they are not. If you want to play games, I can call tax deductions welfare and “recover” all that 401(k) to fund the system. Can’t allow loopholes!
Sure, there would be blood in the streets, but we’re already there when you end Social Security.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:35 pmNot just strictly speaking. We didn’t protect Finland in any sense at all. None of our missiles did **** for Finland, any more than they did anything for Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:36 pmI will point out that Mitt Romney lost when he talked about 47% and a lot of GOP-leaning elderly did not like being called welfare recipients one little bit. So, this plan can NEVER happen if you do that.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:37 pmAgain Milhouse, you are correct. How many more “I’m sorry” posts will you require? It was Holland we did food drops for, not Finland. I made a mistake, Milhouse. Okay? Calm down already. Jeesh.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:38 pmDo you have Tourette’s, Milhouse? Again I was wrong. Should I begin every one of my posts that way or is this enough already? You’re acting like a child.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:41 pm@Rev’m:I was unaware children get SS, I never got it. I thought it was for over 62 or 65 people and the disabled.
And their dependents and survivors. They have always got it. There’s a lot of stuff about SS that not a lot of people know.
@Kevin M:you call SS and Medicare welfare, when they are not.
Just as much so, or as little so, as this proposal. SS and Medicare are not means-tested. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates has the same right to it you have. No one is obligated to “pay in” to receive them.
but we’re already there when you end Social Security.
Social Security ends itself when its obligation to pay out exceeds tax receipts plus borrowing. In practice, the promises will be broken long before then.
a lot of GOP-leaning elderly did not like being called welfare recipients one little bit
How will they like your call for them to be prevented from voting? You said anyone collecting money from the government is a bloc that will just vote themselves more money. How does this not describe seniors?
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:45 pmSS and Medicare are welfare. The taxes you pay do not create any contractual obligation on the USA to ever pay you a single cent. The money is not “put away” for you, and you have no legal claim on it at all. The Supreme Court made that clear in 1960, so you’ve been on notice of it since before you started paying taxes. Any money you do get is by the graciousness and goodwill of the congress of that day, and congress can change its mind at any moment. In other words it’s exactly like every other welfare program. You are no more “entitled” to Social Security than food stamp recipients are entitled to that.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:46 pmNo, I’m just not psychic. I had no way of knowing in advance what you were going to write in the future.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:48 pm@Milhouse:The taxes you pay do not create any contractual obligation on the USA to ever pay you a single cent.
Not to mention that SS and Medicare payments can only ever come from taxation. The government does not operate at a profit, or they would need to tax anyone for what it provides, any more than Apple has to collect taxes to produce iPhones.
So if this money were “put away”, then you could only draw out what you “put in”. Any sort of interest that you accrued would just be confiscated from taxpayers.
The whole point of SS was that no one expected most people to live to 65. It was supposed to be insurance for the misfortune of living longer than you could work, and few people at 65 in the 40s had that problem.
But the Greatest Generation and the Boomers have lived so long and received far more in payments out than they ever “paid in”.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:50 pmIt was welfare from Day One:
Ida May Fuller (September 6, 1874 – January 27, 1975[1]) was the first American to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check. She received the check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.
Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system. She later said about going to the Social Security office, “It wasn’t that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I’d been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it.”
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/7/2015 @ 1:53 pmWhich is why it could be fixed by raising the qualifying age. About 25 years ago I came up with a simple plan: announce that as of two years from the current date, on every 1-Jan the retirement age will go up 3 months, forever. So if you’re due to retire within the next two years, don’t worry. If you’re due to retire after 1-Jan 2+ years from now, then plan now on working for an extra 3 months. If you’re due to retire after 1-Jan 3+ years from now, plan now on working an extra 6 months, etc. This way nobody’s plans are unduly disrupted, everyone has adequate time to prepare, nobody who has already retired loses anything, and in 40 years the retirement age has hit 75, in 60 years it has hit 80, and eventually it will go so high that almost nobody new will qualify for it, so as the existing recipients die off it can be retired too.
That was 25 years ago, when the system still had some slack in it. Now I think the rise would have to be steeper, like maybe 4.5 months a year instead of 3.
Milhouse (8489b1) — 12/7/2015 @ 2:05 pmTax Free?
Dan Kauffman (11707a) — 12/8/2015 @ 1:41 amThis news item is mostly just made up. There’s some truth in that government researchers here are studying the idea of universal cash payments to replace welfare, but there’s no guarantee anything will come of it. (For one thing, we may not have the money).
Go to http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive for the official response.
J from Helsinki (8a6e1c) — 12/8/2015 @ 5:15 am“The part I am waiting to see him address is: what about when people accept your system and then want all the previous benefits back too?”
That’s exactly what will happen (note these are arguments which will be used, not ones with which I agree): unemployment benefits will stay so that job-losers don’t take as much of a hit (someone making $50K a year can’t be forced to live on 12K); Section 8 will stay, because you can’t pay the rent and live on $1,000 a month; Food Stamps at least for children will stay because families can’t afford to buy food after paying the rent; the Earned Income Credit will escape scrutiny, etc.
Tom Blumer (edbfb7) — 12/8/2015 @ 7:09 am#73 above is correct, this is only at the study stage for now. That said, such studies are part of the orderly political process, clear first steps on the path to change. They don’t guarantee follow-through, but they shift the momentum and place the burden of proof on the other foot.
Perhaps worth noting is that the socialists are in the opposition at the moment (rare in Finland); the governing coalition is anchored by the center (agrarian) party, the mild-right “coalition” party (the name “Kokoomus” is hard to translate), and the euro-skeptic Basic Finns party (usually translated “True Finns” or just “Finns”). This is about as far-right a government as any in Western Europe today, or any in recent Finnish history for that matter.
The last time I heard citizens’ income seriously proposed in the US, Nelson Rockefeller was running for president. Sounds about right: Rockefeller Republicanism equates to the modern Western European radical right.
Kristo Miettinen (0de968) — 12/12/2015 @ 11:52 amAddressing the hypothetical. At a minimum, the guaranteed annual income would reset the whole system. People asking for new benefits, even if they previously existed, would have to justify them, and do so in the face of the guaranteed annual income.
In other words, yes, let’s do it. It can’t hurt, and it is very likely to help.
John Moore (8ad7da) — 12/12/2015 @ 6:45 pm