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http://www.scottsantens.com/george-mcgovern-failure-guarantee-every-american-1000-demogrant-basic-income-ubi>
"On the night of their debate, McGovern took the stage against Humphrey
with no real understanding of what the net distributive impact of his
demogrant looked like, and so when Humphrey attacked it upon claims it
would increase the taxes of middle class families earning $12,000 by
$400 ($75,000 by $2,500 in 2019), McGovern couldn’t defend it. He
thought Humphrey knew more than he himself did, so he didn’t push back.
When one of the moderators responded in complete surprise, “But you’re
asking us to accept a program that you can’t tell us how much it’s going
to cost,” McGovern answered, “That’s exactly right.” What McGovern and
Humphrey both didn’t know, and what Nixon did know thanks to the
resources available to him as President, is that the bottom 70-80% of
families would pay less under McGovern’s demogrant than under existing
law or Nixon’s FAP. Households wouldn’t start paying higher taxes under
McGovern’s plan until they earned more than $20,000 ($125,000 in 2019).
Humphrey had been wrong, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done.
Humphrey had successfully painted McGovern’s demogrant as an
unaffordable tax on the middle class. Humphrey also framed it as a pure
UBI where everyone would get it, rich and poor alike, when the actual
plan had a clawback of 33 cents on every dollar, such that a $12,000
household of four would get $0 of the demogrant. McGovern did not push
back against this point either. Viewers watching the debate walked away
with the belief the demogrant would not benefit them despite being told
everyone would get it, because they thought their taxes would go up too
much to pay for it."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
