Comments on: GM and Chrysler, falling wages and basic income http://www.incomesecurityforall.org/gm-and-chrysler-falling-wages-and-basic-income Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:34:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Loren http://www.incomesecurityforall.org/gm-and-chrysler-falling-wages-and-basic-income/comment-page-1#comment-6251 Loren Mon, 11 May 2009 22:10:04 +0000 http://www.incomesecurityforall.org/?p=892#comment-6251 One point I think you should mention on this bailout of GM: with something like $25 billion already spent, and with Time.com's article today (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1897321,00.html) predicting that bailing out GM may cost $100 billion, we can simply divide the cost of the GM bailout by the number of total GM employess (about 100,000): $100,000,000,000 / 100,000, giving us a taxpayer contribution of $1 million dollars for each GM job "saved". Wouldn't that million dollars per job be better spent on 40 Guaranteed Incomes of $25,000 apiece? Especially if this were coupled with a simple restructuring of the US Tax Code, so that every adult can choose, each year, which tax-bracket they want, either (1) pay a flat 25% tax on your income (with no deductions or reporting to the govt on how you spend your money), or (2) receive a NEGATIVE INCOME-TAX stipend of $25,000, and pay a flat 50% tax on any other earnings (again with no deductions). [Note that at the breakeven point of earnings of $100,000 per year, a person would do better to choose the first tax-bracket, of 25% flat tax. Also note that corporations would not be eligible for the second-tax bracket, but would simply pay 25% of their Net Income, and still be required to show detailed income and expense statements ... after all, we have to keep the accountants employed!] Thanks for this great site! Loren One point I think you should mention on this bailout of GM: with something like $25 billion already spent, and with Time.com’s article today (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1897321,00.html) predicting that bailing out GM may cost $100 billion, we can simply divide the cost of the GM bailout by the number of total GM employess (about 100,000): $100,000,000,000 / 100,000, giving us a taxpayer contribution of $1 million dollars for each GM job “saved”. Wouldn’t that million dollars per job be better spent on 40 Guaranteed Incomes of $25,000 apiece? Especially if this were coupled with a simple restructuring of the US Tax Code, so that every adult can choose, each year, which tax-bracket they want, either (1) pay a flat 25% tax on your income (with no deductions or reporting to the govt on how you spend your money), or (2) receive a NEGATIVE INCOME-TAX stipend of $25,000, and pay a flat 50% tax on any other earnings (again with no deductions). [Note that at the breakeven point of earnings of $100,000 per year, a person would do better to choose the first tax-bracket, of 25% flat tax. Also note that corporations would not be eligible for the second-tax bracket, but would simply pay 25% of their Net Income, and still be required to show detailed income and expense statements ... after all, we have to keep the accountants employed!]

Thanks for this great site!

Loren

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