Overview
The plan that Dr. Steve Trost is proposing is a Universal Basic Dividend, which he has now altered from Universal Basic Income. Universal Basic Income means to provide individuals with direct payments for basic needs such as housing, food, and water despite what their needs or merit is. He changed Income to Dividend so that his plan would function more like the gross domestic product of the United States. He believes in libertarianism, which means to live by a political philosophy that sets goals for individual/political freedom, liberty, and individualism. Dr. Trost would like to include these main characteristics of a system without degrading any other areas or people. The plan that he is presenting would also limit the federal government power, maintain property rights, and would have no negative, but only minimal effects on the other areas. “Progressivism seeks to represent the interests of ordinary people through political change and the support of government actions”. With these definitions and beliefs in mind, Dr. Trost’s plan for Universal Basic Dividend extremely elevates the interests of ordinary people. It allows the federal tax burden to become negative for every four-member family making less than $144,000 each year. Communism is a system that “seeks establishment of a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the elimination of social classes, money, and government”. Socialism is a system that “seeks government ownership and control over the means of production”, which we learned about last week in the book “Socialism Sucks”. This proposed idea would ultimately influence people to move from areas of high costs of living to areas of low costs of living. In 1945, Fridrich Hayek tried to advocate for this same concept of universal basic income and insurance knowing of the wealth the United States holds over most other places in the entire world. This concept would basically allow each of us to have more freedom within this country by being able to walk away from circumstances that aren’t good or helpful for us. Some people held objections such as the nanny state and the income effect/ The nanny effect is the feeling that people have that they need the government to take care of them, which is not something anyone wants; living in a free country, we each want to be the one who decides our fate, not have someone else hold our fate in their hands. Furthermore, the income effect is the idea that as people make more money, they tend to work less because they don’t need to work as much for the money they’re making.
Dr. Trost's Plan of Action
In order to get this plan ratified, Professor Dr. Trost would rely on Article V in the Constitution, which says that “two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary,” which speaks of revising the Constitution in any way. Professor Dr. Trost would pre-draft a constitutional amendment instituting a universal basic dividend to convince 3-5 red states as well as 3-5 blue states to pre-approve that constitutional amendment and call for a convention simultaneously.
Benefits
The main benefits that come along with this proposed plan is the freedom to walk away from bad situations, the government doesn’t need to protect companies that are “too big to fail”, certain industries and their obstructionist regulations (free trade agreements), and the government will be constitutionally limited in terms of choosing losers and winners through subsidies and unfettered expansion (strict limits on taxation). It will be easier to begin a new business, since there is lower personal risk. There is also increased personal mobility for individuals and families, such as moving away from bad, unwanted circumstances/areas, moving closer to better jobs, schools, family, etc., and communal style educational opportunities. Also, since there is no minimum wage, new job opportunities/businesses will open and allow low-skilled individuals to work.
My Discussion Viewpoint
I really appreciate this proposed plan and think it would create a positive outcome to where it could possibly be implemented. It would allow people to leave poor-housing areas, poverty, high-crime areas, etc. I appreciate this plan because it solves many of the issues that come with being a fully socialist or fully capitalism economy. Instead of allowing the government to be in charge of all means of production and therefore share all income but resulting in the extinction of entrepreneurs, it allows income to be directly given to everyone to help with housing, food, and other basic needs. This concept would not take money aware from the rich, but everyone would be given the same amount of income to get out of poverty despite their merit or needs and allow them to have a stable economic foundation. The only downside to this concept is that it would possibly give people the idea that they don’t need to work and that they would still receive income every year no matter what.
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'Image Source'
Fred, Alexander. “Andrew Yang Could Use Bitcoin for Universal Basic Income, Freedom Dividend.” BeInCrypto, 23 May 2019, beincrypto.com/andrew-yang-could-use-bitcoin-for-universal-basic-income-freedom-dividend/.