I increasingly think government is the wrong place to craft all kinds of policies. Healthcare is one of them, ideas like UBI are another.
What I mean by this - I really think robust professional organizations need to lead the charge at drafting bills - whether healthcare, economic well-being, global warming, etc. because these organizations have the competence and command of the subjects to actually come up with good ideas. I don't think there are enough doctors in congress to draft sensible healthcare legislation. Similarly I don't think there are enough scientists in congress to adequately handle the shape and character of global warming legislation.
I brought up the UBI issue here in context of something Dave Rubin brought up in a recent interview which I though was a fascinating criticism of what would happen if congress legislated UBI - ie. wouldn't politicians just raise UBI sky-high to milk votes in their district? I think that forces the response that you couldn't have congress in charge of UBI rates - they'd reliably do the wrong things with it because their incentive structure cuts against what's actually healthy for the maintenance of such a system. What you'd need is something like a governmental organization, of similar kind to the Office of Inspector General or CBO, doing an analysis of the costs of living, evaluating the poverty line and the changes in the costs of living, and their detailed analysis should be the only thing to raise UBI - any other considerations would have to be very carefully orchestrated with that office, that office always having high-hand on the pendulum in considering or rejecting any changes to UBI.
I think this is where we might have to consider that our systems, and demands of knowledge, are too far beyond our legislators to have them doing what they want, on political knee-jerk (or based on their lobbyists) to expect sane solutions. We need expertise worked into the system properly and if there is a major populist backlash the only thing legislators should really do is push for transparency in these departments, push for them to have better PR, and really explain to the public - adequately - what they're doing and why their actions, one way or the other, are the best choices that can be made given the information that they have available.
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“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin
Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 01 Jan 2018, 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
01 Jan 2018, 3:36 pm
