Another forced trannypol meme that is owed a measured response is the Universal Basic Income. It needs to be put down wherever it rears its hyperinflating head so here's some information I was able to put together.
Estimated current US Population over 18:
254,046,000
Cost of $1,000/mo ($12,000/yr) per 18+ individual per year:
$3,048,552,000,000
Current Total Federal Budget:
$3,422,000,000,000
Estimate total gross revenue of 10% VAT (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-would-rate-be-under-vat):
$712,000,000,000
>but people already receive benefits
True, but this proposal still involves much more spending; let's look at some of the bigger ones and maybe exclude the lesser ones:
62 million people currently receive Social Security benefits receiving an average of $1,200 monthly, so that group of people would add a substantially lower number versus what is already collected, 148,000,000,000 instead of 892,000,000,000 were they not already receiving benefits of some sort.
42 million SNAP beneficiaries receive an average of $253 a monthly so they would cost an additional 376,488,000,000 on top of the 127,512,000,000 they already receive (504,000,000,000)
All told that is a decrease of about 367.5 billion, but still leaves a 2.7 trillion dollar deficit unaccounted for
At best a 10% VAT (i.e. increasing the cost of all goods and services produced or offered throughout the entire country) will only help fund the UBI by around 25%. You would need a VAT of almoPost too long. Click here to view the full text.