@cjammet we see over and over that taxing particular sales to fund social programs causes trouble as those sales can’t provide a consistent and reliable revenue stream.
So no.
If a government program is needed, fund it through a general fund so it doesn’t rely on any particular funding stream.
@volkris @cjammet I agree. This idea is pandering to the idea that any and all AI sales are all bad therefore tax them more than they would be anyway, regardless of who the buyer is. Sales taxes affect the lower income purchasers more than the wealthy ones, proportionately.
Besides, any country or economy with a central bank doesn't need to do any such thing. You can fund UBI by creating the money first, get investment returns on it & by properly taxing the wealthy on actual income levels.
And the thing is, heck, if you really want to tax AI because it’s bad or whatever, fine, at least put the revenues in the general fund. It’s a bonus to help fund government.
I’m not really for that, but it’s less bad.
It’s the direct connection between this one unreliable funding source and this one important program that’s exponentially more problematic.
Governments do this stuff all the time, and it causes trouble.
One more point to consider: if government is funded by the bad thing, it causes a conflict of interests where government gets more money the more the bad thing is done.
@volkris @radiojammor Thanks for adding your thoughts!
In no way did i say AI is "bad."
It will, however, affect vast swaths of the labor market, and it behooves and the gov't to fully understand pitfalls that arise from technological progress. There is a human and societal cost to technological advancements at scale, esp w/ late-stage capitalist situations where income disparities are already v wide. especially true w/ tech will further benefit one side of that income disparity.
@volkris @radiojammor it's also pretty apparent to me that corporations are eager to eliminate any labor costs they can with AI solutions. that makes is a cultural justification/tipping point for figuring out how we fund #UBI.
I posted the survey to spark some discourse and gain understanding. working so far!
@cjammet so instead of taxing AI to pay for UBI because of a perception of a connection between the two, I would use the employment threat of AI as an argument to sell UBI to the public to be paid for like any other important government program out of normal government revenues.
Depending on just where we’re talking about, often the problem is that the public is not sold on UBI in the first place. It’s not about finding funding for it, but about convincing the public that it is worth funding in the first place.
We know where the funding can come from. It’s just that the public doesn’t agree to do it.
@volkris @cjammet Not quite, IMO. The public doesn't understand MMT and that you can create money, because politician's conflate household bills with national budgets, making the argument, "How can you afford it?" when they know damn well how.
Improve public awareness on both effectiveness of UBI, as well how it can be paid for, expose that monetary argument for what it is (& the politicos that peddle it), and how you can tax back the the value of a UBI from the wealthy that don't need it.
@radiojammor in my experience a lot of people reject UBI for reasons beyond the fiscal side of it, lots of ideas about it being immoral or impractical or corrupting in its own right, regardless of how the money may be raised.
But either way it gets to the same conclusion, regardless of why they don’t support it, there just is not broad buy-in throughout the population.
So if you want to move toward UBI, to focus on ways of taxing to pay for it is putting the cart before the horse. Until the public is convinced that it’s a good idea in the first place, it doesn’t matter how you want to pay for it, the public doesn’t really want to do it anyway.
@volkris @cjammet OK, I simply do not see this level of antipathy, but taking your evidence at face value, pointing out how you pay for it would surely answer at least some of these issues; as well as pointing out how business & the wealthy get tax breaks & handouts they don't need. Why don't people?
Taxation is not how you pay for UBI - it's how you manage any potential inflationary pressure & remove financial benefit of UBI from the wealthy.
Central bank pays for UBI.
@radiojammor Well just for example, within the last month I’ve heard some guy going around the talk show circuit because he has a new book, and when he’s on friendly conservative leaning talk shows in the US often enough they go off talking about how work is a gift from God, and getting your income from work is part of that gift.
I’m sorry I don’t remember the guy’s name, because I really don’t care 🙂 but
I’m not overstating that or mangling that, it is literally the belief that getting your income from working is flat out religious practice.
I bring up this argument as an example of one of many arguments that can’t be refuted by talking about funding source.
And heck, let me throw another example out there, a really sad one that fortunately I don’t think is anywhere near common but.. actually racist people might oppose UBI because they don’t want to give any support to whatever group they are against. Again, the point of this example is that funding source won’t change the opposition to UBI.
So that’s why I say step one is to convince people that UBI is a good idea on its face even regardless of funding. That hurdle would have to be cleared first before even talking about how it would work..
@volkris @cjammet OK, thanks first of all for articulating that response. That religious argument can be overcome by pointing out that UBI does not reduce the number of people that work, it may change the demographics of who does what, but that it may actually improve numbers by giving people the means to train, educate or start businesses they could not get funding for before. In short, the claims that people will not work has been repeatedly shown as fallacious by numerous UBI trials.
You misunderstand the religious argument. It’s not about how many people are working but about the relationship between each individual and their own income, with income not coming from work being, well, sinful.
That might be oversimplifying their stance just a little bit, but I’m illustrating how the statistical or fiscal arguments don’t address the complaints.
But the point of it all is that there are lots of reasons UBI hasn’t raised broad consensus of the public needed to begin actually implementing it.
You can say if they don’t want it it must be good, but that doesn’t change that their not wanting it is a roadblock, whether it’s good or not.
Until the broad consensus can be raised, the idea can’t move forward, again for better or worse.
@volkris @cjammet I don't agree with your response at all.
Few people are going to go along with a refusal to accept a UBI on the basis of "you must work first", when lack of money and/or ability to train, are the reasons they cannot work, and when the number of jobs to work in continues to fall, and there isn't enough paid work to do.
Democracy does not rely on consensus. It relies on majorities. Dumb minority views do not hold the power to stop this. You give undue credence to such nonsense.