yes that is partly true for me but would be the least divisive candidate for most of america
i also think the freedom dividend will have the most benefit to my own life, and also probably true for a majority of americans compared to any other policy
health care, child care and raising taxes on the rich would benefit way more aericans than $1,000/mo inflation dividend.
So you couldn't spend $1000/month on health care or child care? Who do you think would pay the bulk of a VAT and carbon tax?
I'd really like to hear from you and MIR on why the freedom dividend would be inflationary. I challenged MIR a couple weeks ago to explain why, but never got any response.
VAT is going to affect poor people way more than rich, any consumption tax does. A carbon tax without huge investments in transportation infrastructure will really hurt the rural poor.
I think we should evaluate policies of candidates but also ideologies and theories of change and Yang would be first in line to cut Social Security and the rest of the entitlement programs and turn them over to "disruptive innovators." He fundamentally believes that entrepreneurship is the key to solving our problems. So that's what we will get.
Glad to see you dropped the idea that the Freedom Dividend is inflationary.
Consumption taxes only affect the poor more than the rich on a relative basis compared to income. They affect the rich much more on an absolute basis, though. Additionally, the Freedom Dividend affects both groups the same on an absolute basis, so that means it's benefiting the poor much more on relative basis. If you are receiving $12,000 per year ($24,000 for a couple), what would your annual spending have to be to be worse off under a 10% VAT? And that's just spending, not income.
In terms of a carbon tax the rural poor would be better off paying a little bit more for energy and receiving $12,000 per year per person. The additional energy costs are quite small compared to what you are receiving back. A carbon tax that just goes to fund other government programs is going to be bad for the rural poor. A carbon tax that is rebated back to the population on a per capita basis is not going to make them worse off.
Low-income households are going to be better off receiving support that is not means tested. With mean-tested benefits, they are penalized with implicit taxes when income starts going up. With the Freedom Dividend, you don't receive less benefits the more you earn.
I am all for looking at ways to improve the entitlement programs that we have. It's completely ridiculous that we have no privatization in Social Security at all. Chile was able to privatize their social security program. Sweden has a partially privatized system. Neither is perfect, but there are some pretty easy ways to at least partially privatize Social Security in the US. I'm not looking for more of the same in a presidential candidate. I'm looking for someone who's going to change the way these issues are looked at.
