Of course, by the time these proposals made it through the political machine, they would be so bastardized that even I would disown them, but I'm feeling idealistic. As a voter, I want to see political candidates grapple with these underconsidered policy proposals. And as a blogger, I want to hear your thoughts!
Mincome
The goal of the minimum income program is to reduce poverty by providing poor people with money.
These are the pros associated with the mincome:
- Reduces poverty
- Provides stable income
- Offers a decent safety net
- Minimizes beuracracy
- Difficult to "cheat the system" since everything gets shored up at tax time
- May make entrepreneurship more appealing
- You can get rid of minimum wage laws
- You can get rid of all the other social programs
These are the cons associated with the mincome:
- Might increase incentives to smoke pot and play video games
- Proven to reduce work from secondary earners (typically married or co-habitating women with young children) and tertiary earners (teenagers)
- Hella Expensive (requires increased taxes)
- Does not address social problems of poverty
- People can still experience traumatic financial problems.
- Increases xenophobia since we don't want the whole world flooding our borders to avail themselves of the mincome benefits.
I view the mincome as a replacement for most major social benefits programs including SNAP, EBT, Section 8, TANF, SSI, Social Security and unemployment benefits.
I still see a place for Medicaid and CHIP since healthcare costs can easily eat up a mincome and cause financial distress, but nearly every other social program can go ahead and disappear.
Of course, the mincome is an imperfect program, but it is efficient. I think you might be surprised by the number of people who would support this measure. The poor, the people who want to automate poor people's jobs, small government folks, bleeding heart liberals, and maybe an economist or two.
I personally find the whole idea appealing because I hate poverty and inefficiency, and the most efficient solution to eliminating poverty is giving poor people money. It's not the best solution, but I dare anyone to find a more efficient one.
Simplify the tax code
Most deductions and credits are driven by special interest groups, and it seems silly that the tax code can be manipulated to appease special interest groups. Of course, those who itemize their deductions might be a little bit pissed off, but I would hope that a simplified tax code could lead to lower tax rates.
Everyone hates paying taxes, but we don't need to make calculating taxes such a pain in the butt.
These are the pros associated with simplifying the tax code:
- Doing taxes isn't such a PITA
- Requires special interest groups to change laws instead of tax codes
- Reduces costs associated with taxes
- Causes people to spend in line with their values instead of the government's values
These are the cons associated with simplifying the tax code:
- We have to get rid of charitable giving deductions
- CPAs have to find a new line of work.
Everyone pretends to hate special interest groups. Let's put our money where our mouths are and reform the tax code.
A Flat Income Tax paired with a Progressive Consumption Tax
Yes, with a flat tax everyone but the uber rich get screwed. Bummer.
The flat tax idea sucks until you pair it with another good idea known as the progressive consumption tax. A progressive consumption tax is a tax on spending. The more you spend in a given year, the more tax you owe. So the 50,000th dollar you spend will be taxed at a higher rate than the 49,999th dollar you spend.
These are the pros associated with this program:
- Eliminates disincentives to work
- Makes conspicuous spending more difficult
- Encourages saving/investing (supply side economics!)
- Increases incentives to move to lower cost of living areas
These are the cons associated with this program:
- You probably want a complex tax code that allows certain spending to be an itemized deduction (especially giving).
- If everyone reforms their behavior, we may have an even more egregious revenue shortfall.
- Consumer demand may fall and cause recessions
I'm not sure that this program would gain broad support, but isn't it theoretically great?