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Poverty has many causes. Financial poverty and educational poverty may have the greatest impact, but single family homes, culture, or locational influences are other serious contributors. Any program that deals with a single aspect can help, but to really have an impact all contributing factors must be addressed.

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This is a certainty Nedland. The problem has many causes and there is no quick fix. You have to address many factors to hope to accelerate the improvement of the problem.

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The Federal UBI would cover the Basic Income. States could add to the benefits and the tax rate. Since each state might try different approaches (liberal/conservative), they would act as idea incubators, and we could see what works best.

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The cost of a UBI will be around $2.5T ($10k/adult and $3K/child), which will get close to the Federal Poverty Level, the BI. Currently, we spend $2.0T on the safety-net and $1.6T (numbers may be old) on tax deductions.

The safety-net is flawed, because as soon as someone starts to earn, safety-net benefits are taken away, adding to their EFFECTIVE tax rate.

Tax deductions (which go 70% to the rich) reduce the EFFECTIVE tax rate paid by the wealthy.

Eliminating tax deductions and 50% of the safety-net would pay the cost of a UBI. The question to be asked is whether a UBI and a Flat Tax would be better than the current welfare/tax code system?

It would be far more efficient (complying with the current tax code takes 7.6 billion man-hours), since businesses would file for employees. The savings could pay the marginal increase in taxes on the rich. WIN-WIN-WIN

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