Arizona Republicans call basic income payments 'unearned,' introduce a bill to ban them

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Business Insider

Feb 18, 2024, 2:34 PM EST


Republican lawmakers in Arizona are joining a chorus of conservatives across the country trying to ban basic income programs, which offer residents no-strings-attached payments.

Arizona state lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban any municipality or county from making payments to a person as part of a guaranteed basic income program. The law, House Bill 2375, describes a "guaranteed income program" as any program where someone receives payments that are "unearned" and can be used for any reason.

Numerous cities across the country are experimenting with guaranteed basic income programs either through local initiatives or nonprofits. The programs typically provide monthly payments of $500 to $1,000 to low-income residents or families to spend however they want. In Denver, for example, a basic income program that gives some people up to $1,000 a month was recently extended after participants reported increased housing security.

Basic income programs have grown in popularity in recent years, spurred by a housing affordability crisis, a rising number of homeless people, fallout from the pandemic, and worries that AI will replace many jobs.

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/phoenix-arizona-guaranteed-basic-income-program-ubi-republican-ban-2024-2

[TwilightZone]

1. Ban corporate subsidies, then.

They are unearned and significantly less necessary.

[slightlv]

6. The fact is "unearned"

should make them completely untaxable! I mean... isn't that what our rich cousins keep telling us?

[Roy Rolling]

8. Unearned income

It should be taxed at a low capital gains rate, if they paid tax at all. “Unearned income” is already a well-established tax category and Arizona senators can’t redefine it to mean something else.

Republicans are so stupid with the English language, grammar, and logic.

[mpcamb]

13. And corporations are people per SCOTUS so tax the hell out of their subsidies!

[DemocraticPatriot]

17. And stock market dividends....

None of the recipients work for those.....

[FalloutShelter]

2. Are there no workhouses?

The cruelty is the point.

[Voltaire2]

3. Don't give them any ideas.

[Oneironaut]

15. The GOP is Scrooge.

It loves imprisoning black people forever and forcing them into inmate slavery.

[Think. Again.]

4. What does "earning" have to do with it?

[EarthFirst]

5. Perhaps a bill in which days spent in recess are 'unearned income'

146 days a year on average at three times the national median income…

GFYS!

[Bayard]

7. "Unearned income,"

As opposed to cheating and stealing taxpayer money by rethuglicans? Phlegm eaters!

[willamette]

9. So, conceivably ...

A "municipality or county" could still run an advertisement, "Earn up to $1000/month stuffing envelopes at home!" Sort of pulling yourself up by your own BootStraps ...

[area51]

10. Ah, the party of small/limited government.

[eggplant]

11. Republicans love them when they are called block grants.

Feds give money to the state, who can do whatever they want with it, unless it is to give it to individuals to do whatever they want with it.

Uh huh.

[Wonder Why]

12. Gifts from daddy Trump are unearned and the same goes for inheritance. TAX 'EM!

[tclambert]

14. Unearned income. Isn't that dividends, capital gains, and interest?

[AZLD4Candidate]

16. Does this logic apply to farm subsidies too?

[ck4829]

18. Guaranteed income is going to have to be the way if AI keeps going along

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."

- Stephen Hawking

Hawking was wrong about one thing, machine-owners are not having to do a thing because Republicans are outright cheering on for the latter.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. A civilization is to be judged by how it treats its lowest, not by the splendor of its richest

Wealth and income inequality are reaching unsustainable levels.

The ultra-rich have a chance to level things and they wouldn't notice if they each lost half their wealth. If you have 3 billion dollars wealth, your life style for you and your family would be essentially the same if you were only 1.5 billion dollars rich.

If the rich and ultra-rich don't take this golden opportunity to level up the poor and lower middle class then they will in the end suffer ignomious fates, some of them horrendous. That is not a threat, it is simply a reading of history, which repeats for those who don't learn the lessons from it.

Do it! You can afford it!

[KS Toronado]

20. A basic income keeps more money in circulation

which helps the economy, basically paying for itself, oh wait that's what repugs say trickle down does........
"It pays for itself" yet they can not prove it does.

Since we always hear "It's the economy stupid" around election time, should we spend more time comparing
trickle down vs Bidenomics to educate the public to quit voting against their own pocketbooks?

[BumRushDaShow]

21. And the mantra has always been

that something like 70% of the GDP is from "consumer spending". But then when consumers "spend", a different wing of the business media will start whining "Buh buh buh... Americans "arent' ssssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg", while yet another wing will bemoan "Buh buh buh Americans are loading up their credit caaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrdddddssssss".

[KS Toronado]

22. Let 'em whine

It's an underhanded approach to make money for themselves. I can't explain how but I bet it is.