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I wouldn't make it a "tax deduction", my thought was more along the lines of self-reporting to the welfare agency. I have the (fortunate?) experience of having been all over the bloody map when it comes to economics. I've held six figure jobs, and I've been on SNAP. Sometimes in the same year. When I had my severe midlife crisis and left…
I wouldn't make it a "tax deduction", my thought was more along the lines of self-reporting to the welfare agency. I have the (fortunate?) experience of having been all over the bloody map when it comes to economics. I've held six figure jobs, and I've been on SNAP. Sometimes in the same year. When I had my severe midlife crisis and left computer jocking to drive tractor trailers, I had to report to the SNAP and Medicare folks how much I was making when my income changed. This was done through a web interface. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable burden to me.
When you bring in a flat tax... I haven't done the numbers, it may well be a simplification to do a UBI. Though that presumes that everyone *has* an employer, or I have possibly misunderstood your logistics chain.
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As far as harder drugs, having been an EMT in a state with a significant opiate issue, I don;t think most people want fentanyl at all. Fentanyl is an artefact of the drug war and it simply being easier to smuggle in something that's 100 (fentanyl) or 1000 (carfentanil) times stronger than basic heroin, and then the cutting process being done by retards.
If we just straight up legalized heroin, nobody would *ever* touch fentanyl. Heroin addicts are actually remarkably good at moderating their own doses when they have a well regulated (in the original 2A sense) supply. For the most part, they don;t want to die, and know how much to take to not kill themselves. The "opiate crisis" is entirely self-inflicted.
We have a zero income tax bracket now: it's whatever falls below the standard deduction. For an employer to deduct properly, an employer needs to know how much total income you are likely to make including income from other jobs, and spousal income. Employers also have to calculate employer/employee portions of FICA and Medicare. Employers also have to compute state income tax, federal unemployment insurance, and state unemployment insurance.
For a big corporation this can be sunk overhead cost. For a tiny part time startup, this is a really BIG DEAL. Back in my Libertarian days, I tried creating economies of scale for slogan oriented T shirts, bumper stickers and the like. Compliance was the biggest cost of the business by far. Employing someone else to do part of the work was more work than doing it all myself.
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As for fentanyl, you may be correct. But if the voters don't buy it, correct isn't good enough. Back in 1999 I had this fight with the leadership of the Libertarian Party over "Legalize Hemp" vs. "Legalize Drugs." I "won" the argument by footing the bill myself for print runs of Legalize Hemp bumper stickers and yard signs.
Today, Sean Hannity is pushing hemp products. I feel a Nana nana naa naa coming on every time he does so. (Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project deserves at least two orders of magnitude more credit than me, of course. This doesn't stop me from wanting to neener dance, however.)
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Going forward, I'd push for legalizing poppies and coca leaves. If someone is hardcore enough to concentrate poppy gum into heroin or coca leaves into cocaine, let them do so as long as they can handle their high. Neglect your kids or poop on the sidewalk, however, and it's off to the brutalist architecture government run cold turkey rehab clinic.
This is a program I believe I can sell to the Right today. America survived cocaine in Coca Cola, and some of the Founding Fathers were doing opium laced liquor while writing the Constitution.
I suspect we are in very close accord and fencing over trivialities. :D I'm not particularly attached to any particular solution, I just want to do something that actually works. Without being *excessively* authoritarian, being of a libertarian bent myself.
I understand that we have a zero income tax bracket now, my point is more that once a person has qualified for welfare, if they get a job, the *job* shouldn't have to figure out their issues, (though I see your point when it comes to the W-4) but rather the welfare agency should be seeing how much they are making and adjust their benefits accordingly. But I'm also perfectly comfortable with abolishing the income tax entirely, and feeding the feds via excise tax or other similar means. Most internally consistently via fees for services provided.
I will grant that philosophically I find both property and income taxes offensive. I should be allowed to both own things and perform labor for others without paying rent on the activity.
(Edit: Spelling)
The excessive arguing over trivialities is a major factor in why I gave up on libertarianism a dozen years ago. I've rebranded myself as a reactionary. These days I just want the America I was promised as a kid, with a few tweaks thrown in due to lessons learned in the interim. And most of my focus is on how to get there.
Yeah. I'm getting there. ;)