Comment by rdl

GDP is obviously the wrong metric in a lot of ways; the only advantage is that it can be relatively easily measured. What you really want is some measure of surplus economic capacity.

I don’t like the direct results of this policy (taxation, presumably new and higher taxation, specifically to redistribute income and wealth).

However, the second and third order effects are interesting — our immigration policies, assuming the amounts being paid out are meaningful (unlikely at the start) would look a lot more like Canada/NZ — there would be a strong bias toward immigrants who will be net contributors (young, educated, healthy, culturally compatible), vs family unification or politically chosen.

With a correct metric, people would push to reduce military expenditure to the minimum required for actual defense, and to spend the money efficiently; same with other government programs, assuming $300B saved on defense could be turned into direct payments, etc.