What if we got rid of all our social welfare programs; Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps – all of it. In exchange we give every citizen an annual universal basic income of say $13,000?
There are people promoting this idea for the new administration.
“annual universal basic income of say $13,000?”
No f’ing way! I need 10 times that in order to feed my traveling bug, and my expensive taste in wine. I paid into SS and I plan to keep collecting it. 🙂
Socialism is alive and well in DC. Could this be “Fake Newz”?
NO!
Drop, meet Bucket.
How about we get rid of all the welfare programs and freebies and youse all go bust yer hump supporting yer families like the rest of us. Or starve… I no longer care. I started working before the Great Society goodie train left the station. What the hell?
That would be enuf to cover my rent for a year, and that’s it… Now what?
Actually, i like Sigs idea better…
income of say $13,000?
Really? No. Within 5-10 years that number will be over 100k. I can hear it now, “vote for me and I’ll raise the nat’l income”, and those assholes will sound like circus barker’s.
I’d rather give the suffering snowflakes a swift kick in the ass directly towards a 4 year military career.
On the other side of the coin, the people who refuse to do mandatory military service go to the END of the line when it comes time to look for a job in the private sector – forever.
That wouldn’t pay housing, food and medical expenses. Not to even mention transportation, church dues, utilities, and clothing.
And if everyone is to get this, where is it to come from? Is it tax free?
I paid into social security as an insurNce policy and medicare, the entire time I worked. Not to mention my employers matched those funds. Allowing congress and the president to dip into the funds is not the fault of those paying in good faith. Even calling them ‘entitlements’ is insulting. If anyone collects who has not paid into the system, they are robbing my funds. Social security was not set up as an ILLEGAL ALIEN bottomless fund.
Social Security is not a welfare program. I paid into it for 58 years, and I’m still paying into it on my little part time job.
I need the little part job to help pay my taxes. The problem is, as Dinesh D’Souza tells us “there are more people in the wagon, than pulling the wagon.” and that wagon is getting heavier every day. Our politicians are inviting people from all over the world to get on it. WTF! I just hope that President Trump can put the brakes on.
I won’t be around in twenty short years, but I pity those who will, unless there is some meaningful change.
Oh boy, then we can all be parasites!
Kind of not surprised this was on NPR. It actually might be worth talking about except that the liberal/progs could not be trusted to leave it alone or to not add social programs back in when they gained power.
Cut all the programs and substitute NOTHING.
We did (and still do in many areas) a pretty good job with fraternal club and church run charitable systems that kept people from starving and freezing before govt ever muscled its greedy way into the deal.
I’d like to see that tried again. If it fails, then we’ll talk about alternatives, but not before that.
If this happens, I’m going to start a franchise chain that sells 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor, packets of weed, and unhealthy snack foods to the idiots.
Maybe I’ll call it 4-20.
Cut all the programs. Then re-instate only those who qualify, beginning with Social Security.
Meanwhile, do a Koskinen on the dead-beats and fraudsters! We’ll check in on ya eight years later!
I want what’s in the box!
Why? It would be more fair and sensible to eliminate all federal income tax and establish one sales tax with an amendment that the federal government cannot spend more than 4% of GDP. No off budget expenses, no added fees. If GDP goes down, so does government spending.
I’d rather we built public feeding troughs. You get in line, get blasted by a water hose (to clean up), and then you go down on all fours to eat with your head through the slats.
Huh? That’s only for cattle?
What country are you suggesting this be tried? Zambia?
Try this Conservative Dream:
A constitution amendment to end all redistribution by the Federal Government – all of it, corporate, personal, to the States, local Govts. Grandfather in oldsters on the current SS, Medicare. Create separate several tax-free accounts for everyone – one for welfare/pension, one for education, one for health. Have the States take over all income redistribution for citizens. Reduce ALL Federal taxes to an around 6% sales tax (close to the spirit of our Founding – excise taxes, tariffs only).
States – have at it! Every Nutball Leftie Fantasy you want – just not at the Federal level and with no access to a printing press. Hilarity Ensues. Watch what works.
California can do its thing, Texas can do its thing.
Far closer to the Founding.
States will be where most of the action is – 50 experiments competing, none threatening to destroy the nation in one swoop.
One lump sum? Then what do we do with those people who run down to the car lot and spend it all in one fell swoop on wheels? Then they have nothing except their hand out.
oolook
We have press gangs that roam the streets looking for vagrants. They get to go work on the farms.
Plus all the onions they can eat
NO!
Hey Assholes, We’ve had more than our share of your BULLSHIT.
Now, give us our share of what rightfully belongs to us.
During the interim, GFYS.
Gosh. How about we let the people that earn their money to spend it on what they want to spend it on?
SS is a contract that Uncle Sam
made us pay to keep going for
decades while we busted our asses.
It ain’t an “entitlement” and the
illegals and bums that never
kicked in need to be pulled off
the SS Disability they scam to get.
Damn, it’s beyond time to put the assholes back in the rectum from which they came.
How will the welfare leeches make it past January 2?
so a family of 4 would each get 13k? 52000 for a family of 4, the only consequence is no-one can get anything else from the govt?
And we still get to go and WORK to earn $ on top of the 13k each?
Initial reaction?
OK!
Think of how much this would SHRINK THE GOVERNMENT. Instead of having 500 different agencies keeping track of all the different and various ways of giving this SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY away, they just have ONE agency.
What do they do after a couple of years when some people have $50,000 in their savings accounts and other people have a lot of bad tattoos and meth teeth? That ain’t fair…
Social Security was a contract with society. However, society’s end of the bargain was they had to keep growing the population. When society didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, government decided to elect a new society when they threw open the gates in 1965. They thought that just anybody from anywhere could just magically become American. Essentially, Social Security was an unsustainable Ponzi scheme from jump. It will never be addressed or fixed. It will simply stop when the federal government collapses into itself like a black hole.
Flat tax.
And give me back my money!
I would propose a bill called the “Clear the Decks Bill” which would require all participants except S.S. to reapply and verify their need for all social welfare. This would get rid of all the fraud and give the government a means for reinforcing our lax attention to the programs that are currently law.