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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Helgoland]

The one that should matter - that of the poorest ones in society.

@Salmon: So just above the standard of living of the DRC. And the last sentence in your quote sounds surprisingly capitalist...

[Descan]

Shelter, food, internet, and a bit left-over to act as seed money, such as interview clothes. That tends to be my definition, not very rigorous though.

[EnigmaticHat]

My definition has always been "above the poverty line".  And probably + a little to optionally save up.

Granted that only works if you also have socialized medicine and at least slightly forgiving debt and prison systems.  Its not really fair to say that above the poverty line is enough if you can randomly get a $50,000 dollar medical bill.  Or go to prison/go bankrupt and then never work again.  Although I guess if the state is just giving you enough money to live on then never working again might not be a problem...

[FearfulJesuit]

"Poverty line" is an exceptionally difficult term to pin down. You can live quite comfortably in Arkansas or Mississippi on a salary that's starvation-level in New York or San Francisco. If a basic income is something that everyone gets, it should be roughly the same everywhere, and there is- sorry- absolutely no reason to make it $50k a year just because that's the living wage in midtown Manhattan.

A basic income isn't what you need to buy luxuries, it's what you need to buy necessities, plus a little bit extra. Living in Seattle or New York is, I think it's pretty fair to say, a luxury.

Alternatively, don't make basic income an income at all- make it a voucher system. For example, you could get a voucher good to pay rent in one standard-sized flat or small trailer-type house, a set of food stamps good to be redeemed for some food, a transport voucher [or better yet, free public transit- by the time we're ready to set a scheme like this up, we'll hopefully have weaned ourselves off gasoline], and maybe a check for $500/month on top of that. Do people really need much else? If there's a decent transit, educational, library and park system, entertainment and leisure shouldn't cost very much at all.

[Descan]

Ehh, the problem with that is that those voucher systems would cost money to run, and I don't know if it'd be worth using that money on the bureaucracy rather than just giving it to people.

[FearfulJesuit]

Ehh, the problem with that is that those voucher systems would cost money to run, and I don't know if it'd be worth using that money on the bureaucracy rather than just giving it to people.

Any system has some overhead, and you could have an option where you can take the voucher or the equivalent in cash. It's not that difficult if you standardize and mass-produce what the vouchers are for. For example, either you can take the voucher and live in a standardized public flat- cheaply made, but not shoddily, and integrated with a surrounding neighborhood- or you could take, say, $750 per month.

This works because it lets people take the voucher as cash if they want, but also ensures socioeconomic diversity in places where the cost of living is really expensive. If you live in rural Missouri and a regular apartment is $500 per month, you take the check, and that's an extra $250/month for you. If you live in San Fran, you live in public housing.

Likewise, maybe the food voucher covers a range of basic staples- flour, fruit, potatoes, a bit of meat, eggs, beans, rice, milk, butter. You can spend all of that on food, if you want. Or you can spend what you need and have the remainder's value added to your spending check every month. This isn't hard to do if people can do it over the internet, and the benefits offered by the greater flexibility should outweigh the overhead.

Now, meddling by politicians who think they know what people should "really" be spending their money on? Sure, that's a risk. But a) is there really anything wrong with a bit of paternalism, given the self-defeating economic choices that tend to mark the lower class? And b) if people want to take the check instead and blow it on drugs, they can do that, too. (At least, they can blow their own checks on it. Anybody who thinks that people should be allowed to blow their childrens' basic income checks on meth and strippers with no oversight because "muh choices" is living in fantasy land, and in that case, a voucher system actually requires less overhead than a check does, because its use can be tracked.)

[Descan]

I prefer a system that piggy-backs on the IRS or equivalent, providing a negative income for those under the threshold. (Not 1:1 ratio of course)

So while technically there is over-head, it's over-head that would be there regardless.

Also, what "self-defeating economic choices"? Every discussion with actual data I've seen about, the problem is not "Don't know what to do with money," and more "Don't have enough money to get out of the cycle of poverty," as in they don't have the money they need to short-circuit things like "Not enough cash for first+last months rent, therefore living at a hotel which is more expensive" or "Don't have the cash to get a good pair of clothes for interviews, therefore can't get a job" or "No address, therefore can't get a job/loan/whatever, therefore can't get a house/address".

Or just that all of their money (and then some) is going into rent and basic (if that) food, so they can't save any and look for a better/higher paying job.

[RedKing]

What if greatorder started a thread and nobody showed up? 

[Sheb]

That's not entirely true Descan, the poors make the same stupid decisions (impulsive buying, wasting money on stuff like cigarettes or useless status goods) than we all do. It's just that it has a disproportionate impact on them.

[FearfulJesuit]

I prefer a system that piggy-backs on the IRS or equivalent, providing a negative income for those under the threshold. (Not 1:1 ratio of course)

So while technically there is over-head, it's over-head that would be there regardless.

Also, what "self-defeating economic choices"? Every discussion with actual data I've seen about, the problem is not "Don't know what to do with money," and more "Don't have enough money to get out of the cycle of poverty," as in they don't have the money they need to short-circuit things like "Not enough cash for first+last months rent, therefore living at a hotel which is more expensive" or "Don't have the cash to get a good pair of clothes for interviews, therefore can't get a job" or "No address, therefore can't get a job/loan/whatever, therefore can't get a house/address".

Or just that all of their money (and then some) is going into rent and basic (if that) food, so they can't save any and look for a better/higher paying job.

Feeding your kids soda pop? Doing hard drugs? Getting pregnant because you can't be assed to buy condoms?

I think there's this weird strain of anti-Randism on the left that essentially says that poor people can't really do wrong, they're just kept down by the system. No, people of all classes can make right and wrong choices, and to imply that people below a certain economic station are exempt from moral agency makes no more sense than libertarians who imply that the über-rich can't make bad choices unless pressed into it by the evil statists. Certainly, not all poor people make lots of bad choices, and I think it's probably less common than a lot of right-wingers like to imply. But painting people of any social class as inherently saintlike denies them their humanity. Humans can do both good and bad. They're both good and evil by nature. (This is the fundamental issue with both libertarian and Marxist views of society. There's no room for original sin.)

In the case of both poor and rich people alike, the immoral choices that are most visible and inherent to the social class, and that get people riled up at the polls, are the ones that perpetuate the actor's socioeconomic status. For the poor, that's lottery tickets and teen pregnancy. For the rich, that's being an ass to your subordinates, a sociopath in business dealings and using your influence to game the justice system. Bad decisions should not be actively enabled by society [though in any suitably free one at least some bad decisions will be tolerated], regardless of who is making the decision.

I agree that in a perfect world where people generally make good and rational choices, we could just hand them checks secure in the knowledge that they mostly wouldn't be abused. But we don't live in that world yet- I doubt we ever will- and even if a bureaucrat checking your vouchers is distasteful, would you really prefer that people be allowed to take their dependents' basic income checks and spend them on being dissolute?

[nenjin]

But painting people of any social class as inherently saintlike denies them their humanity.

To the same extent, implying people of a lower socioeconomic status are likely morally bankrupt, and that "the left" is cheerleading their moral bankruptcy, is also complete crap and denies them their humanity. But don't let that stop you from asserting it.

[Helgoland]

Except he really didn't. Like, didn't to such a degree that I can't imagine where you'd have gotten that idea from.

[FearfulJesuit]

But painting people of any social class as inherently saintlike denies them their humanity.

To the same extent, implying people of a lower socioeconomic status are likely morally bankrupt, and that "the left" is cheerleading their moral bankruptcy, is also complete crap and denies them their humanity. But don't let that stop you from asserting it.

Look, given people of any stratum, some of them will make bad decisions, and some will make good decisions. If people's bad decisions only affected themselves, that would be, I suppose, be fine- but they don't, they have ripple effects. People need to be checked up on. You have a voucher system for the same reason that you implement campaign finance reform, have workplace safety standards or outlaw bribery- you don't let people use their resources to screw over their dependents or countrymen.

Also, I'm going to switch my avatar away from Ironic Reagan to something else before I start looking like I'm an actual Ronnie fanboy.

[Descan]

Point me where I said "All poor are saints."

What I'm saying is that "The aggregate of people know enough about what they need that they don't need to be hand-held by an expensive voucher system. What they need is the money to put into practice what they already know."

If you are *REALLY* worried about people wasting money like that, then funnel the money you would spend on the voucher system into child services, the foster system, and economic counseling. But don't say "Some of you aren't responsible so we're going to hold ALL of you by the short leash."

I.E. fix the *actual* problem you've pointed out, rather than some weird band-aid solution that targets everyone and doesn't really solve the inherent issue (which is, as you've said, people not knowing what they need to know. They need education for that, not hand-holding by a bureaucrat with a glorified Chuck-E-Cheese ticket)

[nenjin]

Except he really didn't. Like, didn't to such a degree that I can't imagine where you'd have gotten that idea from.

It was more a reaction to "the left seems to think the poor can do no wrong." It's a strawman.