LETTER: Minimum income instead of welfare?

In response to some recent statements printed on welfare reform I think our country’s use of a liberal welfare regime creates unintended incentives, bureaucratic bloat, ensuing administrative costs, a breakdown of inter-group solidarity, and a failure to reach everyone in need of assistance.

The basic income may be a good way to go. Forms of it have been called for by socialists like Martin Luther King Jr. and libertarians such as Hayek and Friedman. We could, for example, muster $2 trillion per year (12 percent of GDP) so Uncle Sam could send each American adult a lump of cash set to match the estimated minimum cost of living in their respective states — no strings attached.

It eliminates the need for many inefficient, means-tested programs and offers conservatives an alternative more palatable than the cradle-to-grave welfare regimes of European social democracies. The plans overseas provide folks a better bang for their taxpayer buck than ours, and I’d be content going that route, but many Americans don’t want the government that involved in their financial affairs.

With the basic income we may be as close as we’re going to get to having the best of both worlds. On one hand we take a huge step towards abolition of poverty and get a more solidaristic plan in place — i.e., everyone pays in and everyone collects benefits. On the other, we could scrap a lot of complicated tax credits, incentives, regulations, and leave supplementary welfare measures to the states.

What’s not to like? —Christopher M.C. Cunningham, Kalispell