Hello there! Some of you older dollars members might recognize me by the name of SaltySparker. Anyways, I wanted to let you all know about a presidential candidate by the name of Andrew Yang, as his policies and "Humanity First" attitude really fit the theme and core message of the dollars! Follow this link to check out his policies (There are 150+) https://www.yang2020.com/policies/

He has more integrity than the other dems on stage save for say Tulsi Gabbard, but his UBI policy is stupid. All it will go towards is more taxes. He ought to just lower taxes for the lower and middle class... It would achieve the same result. But nooooo.... thats a Republican talking point.

1. The Universal Basic Income (UBI) will go towards more taxes, but maybe not the kind you think. The main way of funding the Freedom Dividend is through a VAT (Value Added Tax), which will mainly hit luxury goods that people in the upper middle class or upper class purchase, and will not increase the prices of staples (food, clothes, etc.) for the lower class. It is also payed for by a carbon tax, but that mainly effects larger companies, and doesn't supply much money to the UBI in the first place.

2. Lowering taxes will not have the same effect. The reason behind the Freedom Dividend is to help the approximately 40,000,000 people who live below the poverty line in the US, as well as support the economy with the money given to things such as car repairs, paying off debt. Another reason is to support lower income families in order to create a better home environment with less stress, which would have the effect of increasing the mental health and productivity of the parents as well as the children. There are many more reasons for the UBI that would not be fixed by lowering taxes, which will be placed in a link below.
3. Andrew Yang and his campaign don't care about what is a democrat talking point or a republican talking point, because his entire candidacy is based on how to fix problems in the best and most efficient ways, not just ideological solutions that might get half of the job done or do it slower. Also, Tulsi Gabbard has come out in favor of UBI.

Further reading/sources:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueaddedtax.asp
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/
https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1dRKZmMnDkzxB?t=28m18s

I've read how he intends to implement it. I still disagree with the premise. If the VAT doesn't apply to food/other staple items, then UBI will cause a shortage of it, or cause base price of goods to go up. It's basic economics. If you increase the demand without increasing the supply, either costs go up, or supply gets depleted. Also, $1,000 dollars a month to each American is simply unfeasible through a VAT. Thats $12,000 a year, for 330,000,000 people. Do the math. 4 Trillion dollars anually. You can't fund something that large using a VAT because it relies on people spending enough on luxury goods to fund that 4 trillion dollars consistently. It's too unstable/unpredictable of a model. Plus, you then run the risk of people buying less luxury goods, which means that the VAT per luxury good sold will be ever increasing as people are continuously dissuaded from purchasing them due to the egregious tax markups.

I know he plans to mitigate the cost by making it an opt-in program that would make a recipient ineligible for all other federal welfare programs, but I remain unconvinced of it's effectiveness. It only works in Alaska because it's small scale. Such programs should thus be left to the states to implement IMO.

I think Yang has good intentions. But he's literally bribing the public with it's own money. I like that he's talking about the danger of automation and how to regulate its implementation so as to prevent economic collapse due to technological advancement, but the UBI seems like a pipe dream to me.

The goal is to get people to spend more money to stimulate the economy and to make sure they have enough money to get by. We should be asking ourselves how we make things cheaper. Not how we put monetary band-aids on the problem. As someone living in California, I can attest that things are expensive. And it is difficult to live here. But every time minimum wage has gone up, it has gotten even harder because 1.) it has put me in a higher tax bracket so I'm actually having a greater percentage of my paycheck taken from me annually, and 2.) it has raised the base prices of day to day items. So I stand by my statement in that a lowering of taxes is the way to go. If I didn't have to pay state income tax, the minimum wage increase would have actually been beneficial to me. It's a lot easier to lower taxes than to make the government bureaucracy bigger and more convoluted.