Alaska does this [1]. The only problem with the idea is that some things aren't considered GDP while they grow the pie - open source and volunteering being good examples.
This is why research grants and outright government spending is a good tool in the toolbox. People are still paying for it through taxes, but because of the indirect nature we can judge the problem a bit more on its merits ("of course we want cancer research to happen and be funded")
I think it would be an annual bonus for some Americans, and an annual tax increase for others. As someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group, I feel like we do enough of this kind of thing already.
And as someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group as well, I feel like we do the tax increase part way too much, but we don't do the annual bonus part nearly enough.
That's because any policy which gives free money unilaterally to 320 million people is going to be incredibly expensive. 14,000 * 320 million = 4,480,000,000,000...$4.5 trillion. Just...no. This is more than the Federal government takes in every year currently ($3.27 trillion).
s/bonus/dividend/
Alaska does this [1]. The only problem with the idea is that some things aren't considered GDP while they grow the pie - open source and volunteering being good examples.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
"voting with the wallet"
This is why research grants and outright government spending is a good tool in the toolbox. People are still paying for it through taxes, but because of the indirect nature we can judge the problem a bit more on its merits ("of course we want cancer research to happen and be funded")
I think it would be an annual bonus for some Americans, and an annual tax increase for others. As someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group, I feel like we do enough of this kind of thing already.
And as someone who, I suspect, would be in the second group as well, I feel like we do the tax increase part way too much, but we don't do the annual bonus part nearly enough.
That's because any policy which gives free money unilaterally to 320 million people is going to be incredibly expensive. 14,000 * 320 million = 4,480,000,000,000...$4.5 trillion. Just...no. This is more than the Federal government takes in every year currently ($3.27 trillion).