BREAKING: A group of 10 senators led by @RonWyden has sent a letter to @POTUS urging him to include automatic stabilizers in his Build Back Better bill. Monthly stimulus payments and boosted UI would continue until certain economic conditions are reached.
For anyone who says that the next bill should focus entirely on infrastructure and not include any cash assistance, please understand that cash is LIQUID INFRASTRUCTURE. Cash can become anything. Liquid infrastructure belongs in an infrastructure bill. 👇
UPDATE: Make that 11 senators. @SenBlumenthal has also signed on in support of this push in the Senate for monthly direct checks tied to economic conditions.
Here's also some coverage of the letter to Biden via CNBC.
Call your senators and urge them to sign the letter too! ☎️📱
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It's fascinating how the GOP can shove through a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich during an economic expansion, but during an economic crisis when alarms are blaring and the Fed is begging for them to go big, they support only $600 billion, despite stimulus checks being tax cuts.
Republicans passed a massive tax cut for the rich, and they did it based on the logic that it would not grow the national debt because the rich would spend and invest more and grow the economy. Stimulus checks are tax cuts for the bottom 80% that would boost the economy far more.
Either Republicans are only for making the rich richer, or they don't understand that every stimulus check that goes out is a tax cut that (because it increases spending) pays for itself to a much greater degree than tax cuts for the rich who have lower propensities to consume.
It's true that a sufficiently high UBI could serve as an alternative to a $15 minimum wage, but I personally would prefer a combo of both plus a 4-day 32-hour week. Let's pay people more for work, support all unpaid work, and distribute employment and leisure time more equitably.
What the left needs to be honest about in regards to a $15 min wage is that although the overall effects will likely be positive, there will be impacts like reduced hours to compensate. Let's lean into that by leaving the 5-day 40-hour week behind. Every weekend should be 3 days.
It's also likely that a higher min wage will increase automation. Great! Let's do that! But that means less employment for humans. 4-day weeks share the available employment better, and universal basic income makes automation literally work for everyone.
The following is a thread translating this short video in French by @benoithamon (he ran for president in 2017) about his new book that is a plea for France to adopt Universal Basic Income (UBI):
Hi everyone, I'm presenting you my new book "The Necessary Courage, My Plea for a Universal Basic Income." After the presidential election I tried to think about visible barriers facing UBI but also the most important ones: the invisible ones.
2/6
What were the budgetary, economic arguments... we heard them a lot but also the psychological, philosophical ones justifying the rejection. Working class people and employees tend to think UBI would stigmatize them if it was completing their salary.
3/6
Because of its unconditionality, basic income is for everyone, but because everyone gets it, we can look at its effects on certain demographics. What would UBI do for single mothers, for foster youth, for Black & LGBTQ communities, for artists, for veterans, for ex-felons, etc?
The pilots popping up all over the place to look at the effects of UBI on specific groups aren't saying that UBI is only for those groups. It's about getting people from different communities to think about the effects of UBI on their own communities.
This is about storytelling.
If you can see yourself in the success story of someone provided unconditional basic income, then you are more likely to see the good sense of it. By creating a tapestry of stories people see themselves in, that's how we build a successful coalition.
Pelosi could pass a $50 trillion bill through the House. That doesn't mean it would ever become law, and I'd argue it's meant to not become law. If her intention was to start high and meet in the middle, she's now won. If HEROES was never meant to be law, no deals can be allowed.
Mitch is playing the same game, except he is going low, with the intention of only wanting to create the impression that he wants to pass something, when what he really wants is voters to blame Democrats for not passing something.
Both sides are playing a giant game of chicken.
Who can win the battle of making the other side look like they are the ones responsible for the increasing misery of voters? With only three weeks left, whoever gives in by accepting a deal, will be taking off the table the misery of voters, which is seen as a high value card.
It's not new evidence, but a huge new review of the existing evidence finds no evidence of a significant reduction in labor supply with basic income, instead finding evidence that labor supply increases globally among adults, men and women, young and old.
Because of an ongoing #UBI experiment that started before the pandemic, we now have evidence of what impact UBI would have had if already in place elsewhere. We'd be seeing less food insecurity, less depression, and we would have more hospital capacity.🏥
A 2018-19 experiment in Vancouver, BC provided $7500 unconditional cash to 50 homeless people. As a result they spent less time in shelters, saving the shelter system $8100 per person. Drug and alcohol use also went down 39%, plus food security improved.