1NC---AT: Solvency---General

Melissa S. Kearney and Magne Mogstad, 8-23-2019, Melissa Schettini Kearney is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Magne Mogstad is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Chicago. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Oslo in 2008. (Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a Policy Response to Current Challenges, Aspen Insitute, 8-23-2019, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/UBI-ESG-Memo-082319.pdf, 7-20-2023)//AAlmand

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) provision. In its most basic form, a UBI is a guaranteed cash benefit that the government provides to all citizens. This is not a new idea, but one that has historically resurfaced from time to time. In the 1960s the economist Milton Friedman suggested and the Nixon administration considered a Negative Income Tax (NIT), which is a related policy idea that would give everyone some guaranteed level of income that would gradually be taxed away as own income increases. The longevity of such proposals can be attributed to the fact that various elements of UBI proposals appeal to both conservative and liberal political thinkers. Three trends appear to be driving a renewed interest in UBI. First, some view a UBI as a reasonable response to growing inequality, to stem both economic and political unease. The American entrepreneur Andrew Yang claims the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay has risen from 20 to 1 in 1965 to 271 to 1 in 2016 (Yang, 2018). He notes that current levels of wealth and income inequality can be economically and politically destabilizing, and a UBI would provide a boost to the lowest-earners that could mitigate the effects of this inequality. Second, some worry about the widespread elimination of well-paying jobs for many workers in the U.S. due to robots and other technological advancements. For this reason, the idea seems to have caught on among a number of tech futurist personalities. This also seems to be a main motivation behind the call for a UBI in the book Give People Money by American journalist Annie Lowrey. She writes that it was not a question of “whether self-driving cars and other automated technology would start putting people out of work. It was when – and what would come next” (Lowrey, 2018). A universal basic income, Lowrey concludes, will provide a minimum standard of living for those shut out by automation and other forces, such as international trade. A third, very distinct motivation for a UBI scheme is to streamline the current complicated and sometimes counterproductive system of U.S. transfer programs. American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray is a prominent proponent of a UBI system for this reason. Murray proposes to convert all federal dollars currently spent on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, social services, and other programs into payments of $13,000 per year to every American age 21 or older, which would be scaled back for higher earning individuals such that someone making $50,000 or more would receive a capped amount of $6500 per year. In his 2016 book, Murray stipulates that under his proposal individuals would be required to use $3,000 of their UBI to purchase health insurance. He views the current system of programs as ineffective, and argues that instead, the government should simply give the money directly to people. Murray claims that savings from existing transfer program benefits and their administrative costs can be used to fund a UBI that provides for the poorest and in his view, is less likely to discourage work compared to some existing programs (Murray, 2016). We view a UBI to be a sub-optimal, and possibly harmful, policy response to all three of these challenges. A UBI in its most basic form would be massively expensive yet do little to reduce inequality or advance opportunity. Devoting that level of spending to targeted benefits, focusing on the poorest and those hardest hit by ongoing economic forces, and polices dedicated to human capital development instead of mere redistribution would produce a much greater social return than a UBI. First, on inequality and redistribution, a UBI is by design not ideal for redistributive purposes. For example, a UBI that paid $10,000 to every U.S. adult would cost about $2.5 trillion per year, well more than half the current federal annual budget. Furthermore, by giving money to everyone, there would be far fewer resources available to redistribute money and/or invest in the human capital of those with the most need. In calculations presented below, we show the practical trade-off between giving more money to a more targeted group of low-income individuals and less money to a more diffuse group including less needy individuals. We cite work by Hoynes and Rothstein (2019) documenting the loss of progressivity that would come from replacing our current system of transfer programs with a UBI. We further argue that programs that are universal do not accomplish as much in terms of generating social benefits as those that are targeted, citing evidence from examples such as child care and early childhood education programs. Second, on labor market trends and limited skills, the best long-term policy response is for the government to pursue a pro-work, pro-skills agenda, and devote resources to investing in the human capital development of children and economically disadvantaged groups of individuals. Such a policy emphasis would advance both individual economic security and aggregate productivity. However, it is critical that this long-term investment strategy be coupled with income support programs that provide wage subsidies for low-wage workers and limited cash and near-cash benefits for individuals who can’t work or who are temporarily out of work. This implies a pro-work agenda and targeted redistribution. UBI is neither. Third, the safety net should not just be about redistribution, but also about investment in human capital and in the next generation. Programs should advance opportunity and economic mobility. Targeted in-kind programs and benefits have been shown to do that, especially when targeted to children. We are sympathetic to the argument that the existing safety net consists of a complicated array of different programs. To some extent, however, this complexity is a consequence of having different programs deliberately designed to serve different purposes and/or different needs. Even so, we are in favor of taking a holistic view of the panoply of safety net programs and reforming the entire system to work better in terms of both efficiency (namely, incentives) and equity (specifically, redistribution). Simplifying and improving the system does not, however, imply a UBI. It would be wholly counterproductive to address the complexity of the current system by replacing targeted programs that function as investments in human capital – thereby advancing the productivity of future workers – with an income guarantee that would fail to advance opportunity and upward mobility. Instead, we should reform current programs to better serve their desired goals. In summary, for fiscal, efficiency, and equity reasons, the U.S. government should provide targeted benefits instead of universal benefits. And, it should not just provide cash, but rather invest in human capital and pursue redistribution through targeted spending on education, child care, health insurance, food vouchers, and housing assistance programs.

Basic income sufficient to solve is not possible or realistic—empirics prove

Esteban Mercatante, 8-7-2018, Esteban is an economist from Buenos Aires and a member of the PTS. (Universal Basic Income: A Capitalist Fix to the Evils of Capitalism?, Left Voice, 8-7-2018, https://www.leftvoice.org/universal-basic-income-a-capitalist-solution-to-the-evils-of-capitalism/, 7-20-2023)//AAlmand

A basic level of economic and social rights would be universally guaranteed – without the need to expropriate the means of production or storm the Winter Palace. Since the capitalist state already outlays considerable sums, which in some cases are universal, such as the cash transfers offered to families with children by many states in Latin America, what major roadblocks could stand in the way of taking one more step, however great, down the same path? UBI proponents are certain that it is within reach, and this feeling is reinforced by the growing number of experiments by public agencies and NGOs to test the effects of implementing a basic income. This has occurred even though there is a great abyss separating “progressive” proposals, meant to ensure a “dignified” income, and state practices that aim only to manage poverty without eliminating it. It is no surprise, then, that Rutger Bregman gave his book about UBI the title Utopia for Realists. 5 This book summarizes the experiences from different times and places and also examines the arguments for and against UBI. One of the main objectives of Bregman’s book is to disprove the claim that handing out money for nothing leads to laziness. The author presents the conclusions of a pilot scheme implemented in 2009 in London by the Broadway Cares organization, which delivered 3,000 pounds to 13 homeless people. According to this study, in each case the aid “empowered” the beneficiaries. Utopia also presents the results of a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the performance of the NGO Give Directly, which collects money from donations and delivers it to beneficiaries in poor countries with no strings attached. This study shows a lasting increase in income (on average 38% higher than before the transfer) and an increase in assets and property, including homes (up 58%), as well as a 42% reduction in the number of days that children go hungry. Other examples abound. According to Bregman, there are different programs based on cash transfers that reach 110 million families in 45 countries (“from Brazil to India, from Mexico to South Africa”), the overwhelming majority of which have been implemented in the last 20 years. Focusing on the poorest sectors of society is of course not the same as implementing a UBI sufficient to lift everyone above the poverty line, regardless of their employment status, income and wealth. Bregman does refer to one experiment that took place from 1974 to 1978 in the Canadian town of Dauphin with 13,000 inhabitants. This program secured a basic income for the entire population and ensured that no one fell below the poverty line. Thirty percent of the population (one family in four) received monthly payments that in today’s currency amounted to $19,000 a year. With the arrival of a fiscally zealous new government, the program was canceled without any investigation of the results. Thirty years later, a study analyzed the program’s impacts on health statistics compared with similar populations that did not receive this benefit, and it showed that it was a success. There are currently trials that have been advertised as first steps toward a UBI in Canada, Holland, Scotland, Kenya and India. A “citizen’s wage” is even included in the program of the government coalition formed by the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S – Five Star Movement) and the xenophobic Lega Nord (LN – Northern League), part of a program that also calls for large company tax reductions. In their current stage, these proposals focus on the poor and the unemployed, just like many of the experiments that Bregman refers to. They also continue to run into similar difficulties over time. Finland announced a few months ago that its two-year program, in which 2,000 unemployed people between 25 and 28 years old received 560 euros a month tax-free, was ending on December 31, 2018. This decision was motivated by fiscal austerity as a result of a slowing economic growth, and has nothing to do with the program’s results, which, according to its organizers, can be assessed only after six years. Still, the amount of money provided was less than half of the 1,200 euros needed to avoid poverty in Finland. This fact shows that the proposals discussed by different nation-states are a long way from the paradise of free time without poverty that some leftists like to imagine. This basic income thus aims to be nothing more than a palliative measure. In the United States, for example, there is the SNAP program (“food stamps”) to provide food to people who cannot afford it. Payments such as this ameliorate the situation of the poorest sectors, but they do nothing to reduce income inequality between capitalists and workers, which has particularly exploded in the US since the 1980s. This type of program just allows this unequal income distribution to continue but with a bit less tension. Such a basic income that comes “from above” as a public social security policy will hardly be universal.