A UBI does not have to increase spending – Alaska proves it would be funded by commons based revenue.
Collins, 2017 – senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies [Chuck Collins, The Case for a Universal Basic Income Blogging Our Great Divide, written April 21, https://inequality.org/great- divide/argument-universal- basic-income/, TA]
Stern estimates his $1,000 a month UBI plan for every adult would cost between $1.75 trillion and $2.5 trillion per year. A Cato Institute report pegs UBI costs at somewhere between $2 trillion and $3 trillion. The first $1 trillion of that, more conservative UBI advocates argue, should come through eliminating 126 state and federal social assistance programs that currently total about that much. Most of these programs serve low-income people. By contrast, eliminating tax expenditures – think mortgage deductions and other government programs that benefit mostly higher-income people – would bring in about $1.2 trillion. Instituting a European style value-added tax could raise between $650 billion and $1.3 trillion. Another innovative financing approach would be to tie UBI funding to “commons-based revenue” in the same style as the Alaska Permanent Fund, a program that has worked to widely share the benefits from the state’s oil income. This approach could both supplement declining wage income and address natural resource depletion.