• mumblerfish@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    But they are not for a UBI, right? Because I think they want a negative tax, not something that is a universal income.

    • shaserlark@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      Also it would probably come as a replacement for all other social security measures as is the liberal wet dream. This would reduce bureaucracy but it would also be a way of shutting people up, you don’t have enough money to get by? Well you get your UBI so it’s got to be enough, if it isn’t then tough luck I guess. The problem with Volt is that we don’t even know their exact position on this because they’re mostly just blurting out feel-good marketing slogans.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Negative tax is a way to implement UBI. It’s mathematically equivalent to paying out a flat sum and taking a flat tax which is easier to administer but then there’s the political opinions of the mathematically uninclined asking “why are we giving billionaires money”. (And yes both schemes are progressive, flat tax alone wouldn’t be).

      They’re even in favour of doing it on the EU level, and argue that the TFEU already contains the language necessary for the EU to do it.

      • mumblerfish@lemmy.world
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        28 minutes ago

        Sure, but their’s is not flat

        individuals earning below a set threshold receive payments instead of paying taxes

        So it is not universal. It is not UBI. The difference it not billionaires but the middle class. The upper middle class may not need a UBI, but if you give it to them, they would be inclined to vote to keep it. If you only give a non-universal/progressive negative-tax/income, the middle class would be inclined to vote to vote to keep UBI way below “basic”. Like tax breaks offered to the middle class, I hate them, but they are basically impossible to reverse because they are so popular. A UBI and whatever you want to call this is very different policies.