Who Should Receive a Citizen's Dividend?
All guaranteed income plans have to address this question, and most of them fail right here.
If you make a payout that goes to only some people, look at what happens:
- the recipients become stigmatized
- people resent having to pay for the program
- recipients lose self-esteem
- government bureaucracy grows, to watch over who's included and who's excluded
- people can try to abuse the system
What a terrible mess. The solution is to have everyone be eligible for a Citizen's Dividend. No stigma, no confusion, no bureacracy.
Take this example -- think how awful the reputation of the welfare program in the USA is. Then think about the Social Security system. The Social Security system has problems of its own, but those have to do with funding not eligibility. There's no stigma associated with getting Social Security checks they way there is with welfare. That's because Social Security is not primarily a narrow-focus plan.
Besides, when we turn to the question of funding the Citizen's Dividend program, we'll see that the only fair way to fund it involves money that EVERYONE has an equally good claim to. So of course everyone should receive the Dividend -- it all fits together.
|
