Swiss reject universal basic income for all in referendum

Business | 206831 hits | Jun 05 9:11 am | Posted by: N_Fiddledog

Voters in Switzerland have rejected a proposal for all citizens to recieve a basic monthly income from the government, whether they are in work or not.

Comments

by ShepherdsDog
Sun Jun 05, 2016 5:29 pm
Gee....those mean spirited heartless Swiss.
by Thanos
Sun Jun 05, 2016 5:35 pm
Probably too early for it's time. Give it another forty years or so, when the planet more closely resembles something from Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium stories, what with hyper-violent "welfare islands" everywhere and the government encouraging all the excess units to take as many drugs as possible in order to keep them relatively sedate. But there won't be a warp drive or anything like it to use to escape off-world, so it'll just be about ten billion drones and a couple of million ubers all waiting together in a Soylent Green-type of misery for the long-overdue end of all things. We have seen the future, baby, and it is murder.
by BartSimpson
Mon Jun 06, 2016 3:27 pm
"ShepherdsDog" said
Gee....those mean spirited heartless Swiss.

I know! How dare they expect Muslims to pay their own way! Everyone else in Europe pays for the Muslims, shouldn't the Swiss?
by martin14
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:04 pm
"BartSimpson" said
Gee....those mean spirited heartless Swiss.

I know! How dare they expect Muslims to pay their own way! Everyone else in Europe pays for the Muslims, shouldn't the Swiss?

The basic income was for citizens only.

It was an interesting idea: give every citizen a fixed amount, in exchange almost all
government support for humans would be removed.

Unemployment office, OAP, maternity leave, retraining, welfare, housing a assistance all gone and the offices closed up.

Shows how even a country like Switzerland, the bloated government wasteful spending
is completely out of control.
by Lemmy
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:34 pm
The idea of negative income tax was first (popularly) championed by Milton Friedman. Odd that those of you pooh-poohing it are righties 'cause this is an ultra-right, free-market policy.
by BartSimpson
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:37 pm
"Lemmy" said
The idea of negative income tax was first (popularly) championed by Milton Friedman. Odd that those of you pooh-poohing it are righties 'cause this is an ultra-right, free-market policy.

Friedman supported it because if you're going to have a welfare state then this is the way to do it without a massive bureaucracy to administer numerous social programs.

But the massive bureaucracy is an end in and of itself because the bureaucracy is staffed by union members who reliably vote left.

I oppose both proposals.
by andyt
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:39 pm
Meh. Friedman. So passe. Like saying Raygun was a Republican. A RINO maybe.

No government except the military is the current ultra-right position. People should stand on their own two feet, not rely on the government. Except the military.
by BartSimpson
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:43 pm
"andyt" said
Meh. Friedman. So passe. Like saying Raygun was a Republican. A RINO maybe.

No government except the military is the current ultra-right position. People should stand on their own two feet, not rely on the government. Except the military.

I'm not quite that serious.

I just want government to refrain from taking over things that it does not have the Constitutional authority to do. I also want people in government who believe the laws that limit their actions are just as valid as the laws that limit everyone else's actions.
by N_Fiddledog
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:48 pm
What Friedman was considering was not what was proposed here. The difference is large enough that it's nonsense to compare the two.

One model was proposed by Milton Friedman. In this version, a specified proportion of unused deductions or allowances would be refunded to the taxpayer. If, for a family of four the amount of allowances came out to $10,000, and the subsidy rate was 50%, and the family earned $6,000, the family would receive $2,000, because it left $4,000 of allowances unused, and therefore qualifies for $2,000, half that amount. Friedman feared that subsidy rates any higher would lessen the incentive to obtain employment. He also warned that the negative income tax, as an addition to the "ragbag" of welfare and assistance programs, would only worsen the problem of bureaucracy and waste. Instead, he argued, the negative income tax should immediately replace all other welfare and assistance programs on the way to a completely laissez-faire society where all welfare is privately administered. The negative income tax has come up in one form or another in Congress, but Friedman eventually opposed it because it came packaged with other undesirable elements antithetical to the efficacy of the negative income tax. Friedman preferred to have no income tax at all, but said he did not think it was politically feasible at that time to eliminate it, so he suggested this as a less harmful income tax scheme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
by Lemmy
Mon Jun 06, 2016 4:52 pm
"BartSimpson" said
Friedman supported it because if you're going to have a welfare state then this is the way to do it without a massive bureaucracy to administer numerous social programs.

Yes! It's exactly why we shouldn't have gov't housing and minimum wage and all the other lefty policies that just create inefficiencies. Better to give people cash and make their own decisions about how to use it. Leave government to govern instead of providing all the sorts of things that people could just do with their own money, privately, if they had a little.

"BartSimpson" said
But the massive bureaucracy is an end in and of itself because the bureaucracy is staffed by union members who reliably vote left.

Exactly. That's what you get when you attempt to do everything for someone.

"BartSimpson" said
I oppose both proposals.

Then you prefer a reversion to the social problems of the 1900/1910s, which is fair, but I don't think you're really wishing for a return of the not-so-good-old days.
"andyt" said
Meh. Friedman. So passe. Like saying Raygun was a Republican. A RINO maybe.

No government except the military is the current ultra-right position. People should stand on their own two feet, not rely on the government. Except the military.

But that's exactly the solution! Give people who need more money more money. Then let them spend it how they choose rather than having all those goods & services provided inefficiently through government. If people have money, they have no need of government.
by andyt
Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:00 pm
Who's going to collect and distribute this money? Who's going to make sure the people collecting and distributing are doing so according to the regs? Will you give the same amount each year, or vary it according to how much money came in that year - ie who will invest any excess money for leaner years? And there's your IRS and various other bureaucracies. Who's going to handle the money for the mentally challened/ill? And so on. You talk about the ills of 1900's, you're going to recreate those ills with your scheme.
by Lemmy
Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:02 pm
So we shouldn't build a boat because it might sink. Defeatism got humanity exactly nowhere.
by andyt
Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:08 pm
We shouldn't build a boat the will probably sink or sail in circles. I'm talking about eliminating govt. You may not be, so if there's a govt to make sure people who can't handle the money are protected, fine. But again, you talk about social problems of past eras, just shoveling money to people who can't handle it will create those all over. You'll still have people living on the street who blew all their money, and the people who prey on them getting fatter than they are now.
by Lemmy
Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:16 pm
The ship we're already in is the one sinking. Time to look for a better design.

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