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RE: Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to make a Basic Income possible

in #basicincome8 years ago (edited)

To put the problem in simpler terms, the people and companies with wealth have the means to leave the country when the cost of staying becomes more expensive than paying the "exit tax" and moving to another country reducing the our tax base.

The challenge to providing a "basic income" is doing it with a minimal amount of wealth redistribution as a percentage per person "tax" and increasing the tax base. For any continuing long term program backed by tax dollars to work you need several things, primarily a growing tax base willing to pay those taxes and an economy that grows steadily with the population rate to keep paying those taxes.

Especially when you live in a country like the that has spent years making it more profitable to not do business in.

Taxes on tobacco products are a prime example. It's a declining revenue base. Every year fewer people use tobacco products and every increase of taxes on tobacco products dives the use down even more. While this isn't a bad thing in terms of public health, it is a problem when these tax dollars are used to fund programs like children's health insurance. At some point these programs will need to find a new revenue source. It also impacts the labor force. As sales decline, so do jobs, and tax revenue from both the companies and the individuals.

If people really want a basic income in the US, for it succeed there would have to be major change if it were to succeed and not cause an economic disaster. As kooshikoo below pointed out, I think it actually could cause an increase in "startups". Just not when the red tape, permitting processes, taxes, and regulation make it too difficult and to costly.

Ideally I think a country that is rich in natural resources could make it work if the resources were nationalized. Provided the government wasn't greedy and invested the money from those resources wisely. Unfortunately most countries that have nationalized resources are poor. Mostly due to greed, corruption, and mismanagement.

Venezuela is an example. What could have been a boon for its citizens in the form of one or two well run nationalized businesses based on natural resources instead has brought the country close to economic collapse. I believe that the government's corruption, mismanagement, price setting, and short sightedness in "de-industrializing" in favor of a truer socialist model and relying heavily on imports of basic necessities has caused an economic crisis where as the country could have had a basic income and private sector growth to support more people and a better way of life.

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