Andrew Yang’s Crazy UBI Plan: Give Lazy Freeloaders $12,000 Every Year for Doing Nothing

Closing month, Democratic rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came under fire for a line in the Green New Deal that probable security for those “unwilling to work.” Her team quickly lied about it, claiming GOP doctoring, before eventually chalking it up to an “at daybreak draft” that was accidentally released. But Universal Basic Income (UBI) is gaining traction among Democratic candidates, and now Andrew Yang is management for president with just one promise: free money for all.

Andrew Yang’s UBI Plan: $12,000 in Free Money Every Year

Yang, a old education entrepreneur and founder of Venture for America, claims on his website that his first priority “will be to implement Common Basic Income for every American.” And who could say no to that? Under his plan, every American over the age of 18 when one pleases receive $1,000/month, with “no strings attached”:

Universal Basic Income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally hand overed to all citizens, without means-test or work requirement. Everyone gets the same amount of cash: the homeless and the billionaire. No without a doubts asked. Forever. pic.twitter.com/VhiitjoRzR

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) November 20, 2018

Read More: What do Andrew Yang and the other 2020 US presidential aspirants think about bitcoin?

The Democratic Party Hates Producers

UBI is an emerging idea, but left-leaning candidates are no strangers to the prosperity state.

For years, the unofficial Democratic party mascot has been a self-righteous Robin Hood: demonizing the wealthy and reassuring the spoils of their massive tax increases to a voter base that feels that they’re owed a share.

Bernie Sanders make a pass ated a 77% rate for billionaires, and AOC wants to tax incomes of over $10 million at 70%.

But Andrew Yang takes a different course: apparently, all 193 million qualified Americans will receive their unearned “salary” from the businesses blamed for their collective catastrophes. 

Andrew Yang: Elon Musk is a UBI Fan Too!

To justify his proposed 10% Value Added Tax (VAT), Yang significations to the rise of automation. He even notes that Elon Musk, the poster boy for American capitalism, has promoted the idea of a general basic income.

Bill Clinton joins President Obama, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, Kai-Fu Lee, Jack Ma, Richard Branson, and Sam Altman in portent us of the unprecedented waves of automation and job displacement we face.

It’s time to take action and respond to this crisis right now. pic.twitter.com/WGN6Bxlmgd

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) October 17, 2018

Yes, Elon Musk concedes that automation will cause massive job displacement, stating at the World Government Summit in Dubai that “there resolve be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better.” But the utopian idea of free money for all, appealing as it may be, plainly doesn’t hold water. 

Scientific Studies Show UBI Doesn’t Work

In Finland, where citizens received $634 per month in a bur program between January 2017 and January 2018, the project was considered a failure. And yet Andrew Yang believes that in America, at a ascend much larger than the failed test, giving away cash will somehow improve the economy. 

Yes, specie infusions will artificially increase spending volume. But inflation will undoubtedly wipe away those proceeds: as every consumer over the age of 18 receives their unearned stipends, companies will raise prices to account for the lowering in per-dollar value. And if that weren’t enough, the VAT proposal will require further increases on the part of companies, as their profits are being flailed to support the unwilling to work.

UBI Will be Exploited by FreeLoaders Who are Too Lazy to Work

And, beyond the economic foolishness of UBI, that support of the unwilling is the greatest issue with Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign. This platform, and a men similar, consistently frame financial security and general well-being for all as fundamental rights. This supposedly ethical justification takes as an unarguable line of defense against questioning: what kind of terrible person doesn’t want to help all else? 

Yang publicly distanced himself from the notion of paying the unwilling to work. But, in practice and his own words, he validates it fully. No strings attached means that the $12,000 per year per person can be used on anything, by anyone. Don’t feel disposed to finding a job? No need. Want to take up drug abuse? Now you can. It is foolish to assume that everyone will use their “receipts” unproductively. But it’s equally foolish to assume that large numbers of citizens will use that $12,000 in totally upright and productive ways. 

Andrew Yang: The Night King 

Yang will likely gather a substantial following in advance this election cycle ends, including those seeking handouts and the self-righteous agreeing in his pseudo-moral premise. Sanguinely, though, America will wake up and recognize that UBI would be hugely detrimental to the economy, its citizens, and the world. 

He does take an idea that’s much more reasonable than UBI, though: 

To bring the country together I would give everybody an HBO GO password so we could all watch Game of Thrones.

— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) March 6, 2019

Winter is coming. And Andrew Yang’s formula is worse than the Night King. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be featured to, CCN.