When prompted the idea of a universal basic income at first, I was honestly skeptical of the whole idea for all the reasons that were provided within the lecture. those being that some people won't work as hard that some people just live off of it kind of like welfare and all the other Social Security services that are in the status quo. Dr. Trost actually gives a pretty believable and legitimate option for a universal basic income and his strategy of using a flat rate tax at 25% is actually pretty smart. it not only saves you a lot of time during tax season but also opens a lot of avenues of smart money spending. He caps federal spending at 9% of GDP which allows us to bring in a lot of control of not only the government but also politicians that like to line their pockets with money. The other 16% would be used for pretty much whatever we see fit whether that be education loans that kind of stuff and provides A footing for anyone.
The idea of having a minimum of $9000 per person also gives a backing for your basic needs obviously this helps you I think become more productive and proactive with the work you do that you don't have to necessarily fight to survive in the economy. As a farmer I look at this approach and think if I had a minimum or a floor to stand on where my food, and housing were covered and all I had to do and worry about was producing a crop, it would reduce the stresses of being a producer. Fact that anything I do extra is for my good and if I don't do as well as I had originally thought there is a backing that I can still live my life and not have to go under. There may be some changes to the operation to adjust but honestly that's in better favor of the economy one of my favorite sayings is that eventually the economy will drive us to do the right thing whether that be the things we do or the way we go about it but the economy will always drive us to doing the right thing.
I believe that this universal basic income allows that to be true and gives us the freedom to fail as Dr. Trost always stresses about and another great point that was brought up was giving people the opportunity to walk away. Giving the definition that freedom is when you have the ability walk away from things allows new avenues for people to try different things and not have to stress so much about coming up with the money to do so. The whole concept of the dollar per hour wage you know being more on a skill base is also pretty valuable and the fact that with such a high tax rate it makes it harder to be able to afford quality labor. But if you already have this floor to work with and you're just adding upon it really allows for workers to become more self-sufficient and valuable to the economy and those businesses.
Dr. Trost is also correct in the fact that given the political situation and the divided nation that we live in this would obviously be very difficult to get past. As I had stated before I was very skeptical about the idea of a universal basic income but honestly after thinking about it more and listening to his counter arguments to those common misconceptions it gives me more reason to believe that this is actually a viable plan that gives everybody in a sense what they want except for politicians. The only other kind of thought/idea that I had around the whole idea of universal basic income and the idea that people can walk away from problems and go search for better opportunities and move around to areas where they can facilitate themselves is what about the areas that are left behind where people are moving from two new locations how does that affect the communities the businesses and the economies of those areas and that's the only thing that I didn't feel was covered as well or maybe I had missed something there. Overall given Dr. Trost’s plan I would support a universal basic income because I see that it would give a value to producers and the economy and people who drive to succeed while giving a backing for them and other less fortunate people too move to also find success.
