The idea of a Basic Income has been a hobby-horse of parliamentarians for a while, and yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with a report that purported to cost one out in a couple of different scenarios. But it’s a bit of a horror show of a report because what it’s actually describing is a cash transfer and not an actual Basic Income scheme, and more than that, some of the things it purports to strip in order to pay for its high price tag are a number of disability supports. Remember that while a Basic Income may sound like a left-wing idea, there is plenty of right-wing support for it if it dismantles the welfare state, where replacing tailored disability programmes with a one-size-fits-all cash transfer is a feature and not a bug. (More from economist Mike Moffatt here).
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280537746881212422
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1280630991661535238
Suffice to say, this report got some senators all hot and bothered, including Senator Yuen Pau Woo, who put out a press release on the topic, calling for a pilot project, so here’s Lindsay Tedds, who worked on BC’s Basic Income project for the last two years, and who knows a thing or two about Basic Income.
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280562781142388736
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280643403349291008
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280623432766353408
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280623434410496003
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280624155994361856
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280628328622219265