Tag: taxes

Bad News for Universal Basic Income

The largest study into the real-world consequences of giving people an extra $1,000 per month, with no strings attached, has found that those individuals generally worked less, earned less, and engaged in more leisure time activities.

It’s a result that seems to undercut some of the arguments for universal basic income (UBI), which advocates say would help lower- and middle-class Americans become more productive. The idea is that a UBI would reduce the financial uncertainty that might keep some people from pursuing new careers or entrepreneurial opportunities. Andrew Yang, the businessman and one-time Democratic presidential candidate who popularized the idea during his 2020 primary campaign, believes that a $1,000 monthly UBI would “enable all Americans to pay their bills, educate themselves, start businesses, be more creative, stay healthy, relocate for work, spend time with their children, take care of loved ones, and have a real stake in the future.”

In theory, that sounds great. In reality, that’s not what most people do, according to a working paper published this month.

The five researchers who published the paper tracked 1,000 people in Illinois and Texas over three years who were given $1,000 monthly gifts from a nonprofit that funded the study. The average household income for the study’s participants was about $29,000 in 2019, so the monthly payments amounted to about a 40 percent increase in their income.

Relative to a control group of 2,000 people who received just $50 per month, the participants in the UBI group were less productive and no more likely to pursue better jobs or start businesses, the researchers found. They also reported “no significant effects on investments in human capital” due to the monthly payments.

Participants receiving the $1,000 monthly payments saw their income fall by about $1,500 per year (excluding the UBI payments), due to a two percentage point decrease in labor market participation and the fact that participants worked about 1.3 hours less per week than the members of the control group.

“You can think of total household income, excluding the transfers, as falling by more than 20 cents for every $1 received,” wrote Eva Vivalt, a University of Toronto economist who co-authored the study, in a post on X. “This is a pretty substantial effect.”

But if those people are working less, the important question to ask is how they spent the extra time—time that was, effectively, purchased by the transfer payments.

Participants in the study generally did not use the extra time to seek new or better jobs—even though younger participants were slightly more likely to pursue additional education. There was no clear indication that the participants in the study were more likely to take the risk of starting a new business, although Vivalt points out that there was a significant uptick in “precursors” to entrepreneurialism. Instead, the largest increases were in categories that the researchers termed social and solo leisure activities.

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NASA built a Moon rover but can’t afford to get it to the launch pad

NASA has spent $450 million designing and building a first-of-its-kind robot to drive into eternally dark craters at the Moon’s south pole, but the agency announced Wednesday it will cancel the rover due to delays and cost overruns.

“NASA intends to discontinue the VIPER mission,” said Nicky Fox, head of the agency’s science mission directorate. “Decisions like this are never easy, and we haven’t made this one, in any way, lightly. In this case, the projected remaining expenses for VIPER would have resulted in either having to cancel or disrupt many other missions in our Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) line.”

NASA has terminated science missions after development delays and cost overruns before, but it’s rare to cancel a mission with a spacecraft that is already built.

The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission was supposed to be a robotic scout for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface in the next few years. VIPER was originally planned to launch in late 2023 and was slated to fly to the Moon aboard a commercial lander provided by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, which won a contract from NASA in 2020 to deliver the VIPER rover to the lunar surface. Astrobotic is one of 14 companies in the pool of contractors for NASA’s CLPS program, with the goal of transporting government-sponsored science payloads to the Moon.

But VIPER has been delayed at least two years—the most recent schedule projected a launch in September 2025—causing its cost to grow from $433 million to more than $609 million. The ballooning costs automatically triggered a NASA review to determine whether to proceed with the mission or cancel it. Ultimately, officials said they determined NASA couldn’t pay the extra costs for VIPER without affecting other Moon missions.

“Therefore, we’ve made the decision to forego this particular mission, the VIPER mission, in order to be able to sustain the entire program,” Fox said.

“We’re disappointed,” said John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. “It’s certainly difficult news… VIPER has been a great team to work with, and we’re disappointed we won’t get the chance to fly them to the Moon.”

NASA said it will consider “expressions of interest” submitted by US industry and international partners by August 1 for use of the existing VIPER rover at no cost to the government. If NASA can’t find anyone to take over VIPER who can pay to get it to the Moon, the agency plans to disassemble the rover and harvest instruments and components for future lunar missions.

Scientists were dismayed by VIPER’s cancellation.

“It’s absurd, to be honest with you,” said Clive Neal, a planetary geologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It made no sense to me in terms of the economics. You’re canceling a mission that is complete, built, ready to go. It’s in the middle of testing.”

“This is a bad mistake,” wrote Phil Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, in a post on X. “This was the premier mission to measure lateral and vertical variations of lunar ice in the soil. It would have been revolutionary. Other missions don’t replace what is lost here.”

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Trudeau’s Signature Pot Legalization Is Failing On All Fronts

Isaac Newton said he lost money on the South Sea Bubble financial collapse because, although he could track the movement of stars, he could not calculate the madness of men.

In Canada, the legalization of cannabis in October 2018, unleashed a mania that has seen nearly 1,000 companies receive federal production licences and retailers open nearly 3,500 stores selling cannabis products across the country. It is a short street indeed that doesn’t have a pot shop on it.

The Cannabis Act was a cornerstone piece of legislation for the Trudeau government — a welcome end to 94 years of failed prohibition and an attempt to make Canada safer by closing down the black market in unregulated pot.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way and now there are dire warnings that the onerous federal regulatory and tax regime is in danger of killing the nascent licensed production market.

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The Economic Folly of a Carbon Tax

The push for a carbon tax has regained popularity as the fiscal storm in 2025 and climate change debates intensify. Advocates claim it’s a solution to pay for spending excesses while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But a carbon tax is a misguided, costly policy that must be rejected.

A carbon tax functions more like an income tax than a consumption tax, capturing all forms of work, including capital goods production and building construction. These sectors are heavy on carbon emissions, meaning the tax disproportionately burdens them, stifling investment and innovation — much like a progressive income tax, but with broader economic repercussions.

For example, in the US, the construction sector alone accounts for about 40 percent of carbon emissions. A carbon tax would heavily penalize this industry, reducing its capacity to grow, generate new housing, and create jobs. Moreover, implementing a carbon tax involves massive administrative costs. The federal tax code is already complex and costly; a carbon tax would exacerbate these issues.

Determining net carbon emissions is a nuanced process subject to ever-changing and arbitrary federal definitions, increasing compliance costs for businesses and consumers.

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LA CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERS FUNDING FORMER IDF SOLDIERS TO PATROL ITS STREETS

THE LOS ANGELES City Council is considering whether to give public funds to private, armed security patrols to protect its religious communities, following a protest against the marketing of West Bank settlement properties at an LA synagogue last month that turned violent. 

In the immediate wake of the incident, city council members introduced a motion to give $1 million to several Jewish security organizations that would expand their work around Jewish schools, religious institutions, and neighborhoods. 

Magen Am, a nonprofit that runs armed patrol services and firearm training programs for the Jewish community, was named as the recipient of $350,000 in the motion. The group is largely made up of former Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. military veterans, according to the group’s website and social media posts, and was founded by a former MMA fighter with ties to the National Rifle Association. The majority of the former Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the group are “lone soldiers,” according to several reports, the term for individuals with no direct ties to the state of Israel who immigrated there to serve in the nation’s military.

The city council has since introduced a new motion, which would give $2 million to various faith groups that want to hire additional security and does not mention Magen Am or any recipients by name. But LA activists are still concerned that city funds will go to an armed group with hard-line political stances.

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Under Biden More Americans on Welfare and Fewer Americans Working

Socialists want higher taxes, increased reliance on government, and if possible, the complete elimination of the private sector.

They aim to transform the US into a country where, like much of the world, 1 in 5 youths are NEET—“not in employment, education, or training.” In the US, the percentage of those aged 16-24 qualifying as NEET has already reached 11.9%, and as welfare and unemployment benefits increase, so will this number.

They advocate for universal basic income (UBI), which is defined as “an unconditional cash payment given at regular intervals by the government to all residents, regardless of their earnings or employment status.” The country appears to be moving in this direction.

Under Biden, more people are on government assistance than at any time in US history, and the workforce participation rate is at the lowest point since 1978, when women became fully integrated into the workforce.

The low workforce participation rate is the result of liberal government unemployment and disability payments, as well as food and rent assistance, that make it more profitable to stay home and collect checks than to work.

Those who support welfare programs often downplay the amount of money recipients receive by citing a single program like SNAP, where the maximum benefit for a family of four is $931.

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Bombshell Whistleblower Testimony: Biden Regime Paying BILLIONS to Facilitate Child Trafficking via Government Contractors

During a round table held by Republican Senators on Tuesday, federal whistleblowers claimed that the Biden Regime is facilitating the trafficking of migrant children via contractors receiving billions of taxpayer dollars.

Deborah White and her colleague Tara Rodes, who are federal employees in the Health and Human Services Unaccompanied Child Program, both testified that the Office of Refugee Resettlement sent thousands of unaccompanied migrant children into potentially dangerous environments after failing to properly vet the sponsors they were being placed with.

According to White, there’s no question: these kids are being trafficked – and the Biden Regime is “complicit.”

From White’s shocking testimony:

“What I discovered was horrifying… Make no mistake – children were not going to their parents they were being trafficked with billions of taxpayer dollars by a contractor failing to to vet sponsors and process children safely with government officials complicit in it.”

In one example, White brought up an alarming case in Florida that involved more than a dozen children linked to one sponsor at multiple addresses.

“Children were sent to addresses that were abandoned houses or non-existent in some cases” she added.

She also talked about another case in which a child was dropped off at an “open field” in Michigan by the HHS contractor. If that wasn’t bad enough, the child was left despite a 911 call coming in around the same area and time. The call reported someone screaming for help.

Rodas followed up White’s bombshell testimony with concerns for the safety of the children at the hands of these unvetted sponsors. As she points out, they could be anyone.

“To place vulnerable migrant children into the hands of sponsors with criminal history, gang affiliation, to whom many aren’t even their parents,” she said.

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In Bid to Bribe Voters Biden Admin Gives $1.7B of Taxpayer Cash to EV Companies in Swing States

The Biden administration’s latest move in its ambitious climate agenda has raised eyebrows across the automotive industry and beyond.

In a sweeping announcement, the Department of Energy (DOE) revealed plans to inject nearly $1.7 billion of taxpayer money into transforming traditional auto manufacturing facilities into electric vehicle (EV) production hubs. This decision comes despite questionable consumer demand and infrastructure readiness for a widespread EV transition.

At the forefront of this initiative are General Motors (GM) and Stellantis, set to receive a whopping $1.1 billion in federal funding.

The DOE claims this investment will modernize 11 plants across eight states, potentially safeguarding 15,000 existing jobs and creating 3,000 new positions.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm framed the grants as a “hallmark of the Biden administration’s industrial strategy,” aimed at revitalizing historical auto manufacturing facilities.

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IRS Crackdown Nets Enough Revenue To Fund the Government for 90 Minutes

The Biden administration’s expensive efforts at beefing up the IRS’ ability to target wealthier Americans with unpaid federal taxes have finally netted $1 billion in additional revenue.

Or, to put it another way, the yearlong campaign has generated enough cash to fund the federal government for…about 90 minutes.

Do the math. The United States spent about $6.1 trillion last year. That translates to roughly $16.7 billion per day or about $700 million per hour. Against the federal government’s insatiable appetite for spending, even unfathomably large figures like $1 billion are reduced to mere rounding errors.

That $1 billion was the result of what the IRS calls “stepped up activity” targeting about 1,600 individuals with incomes of over $1 million and who owed over $250,000 in known tax debt. The $1 billion in new revenue comes from payments made by about 1,200 individuals, according to the IRS.

“Our increased work in this area means these past-due tax bills from high-end taxpayers are no longer being left on the table, like they were too often in the past,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a press release.

Of course, everyone should pay the amount of tax that they legally owe—and not one penny more. And, yes, $1 billion in additional revenue brings the federal books marginally closer to balancing.

But this announcement mostly serves to underscore the size of America’s fiscal problems and the utter inability to solve them by closing the so-called “tax gap.” The federal government is on pace to run a deficit of $2 trillion this year and a cumulative deficit of over $20 trillion in the next decade. Closing that gap will require a complete overhaul of the federal budget and a rethinking of the role of government.

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Israel to Ukraine to Bulgaria: Which countries receive US military aid?

The United States is poised to restart the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel that were held up earlier this year after a pause on their export following the brutal offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, officials told multiple media organisations on Wednesday.

In early May, Biden had paused a single shipment of bombs after Israel ordered the evacuation of Rafah on May 6 and the Israeli military began “targeted” ground operations one day later. Since then, United Nations agencies estimate that about a million Palestinians – many of whom have already been displaced multiple times from other areas of Gaza – have been forced to flee from Rafah.

Throughout Israel’s military campaign on Gaza, the US has not only allowed weapons sales to Israel. It has also provided large amounts of other military aid – both financially and, it is believed, through supportive military operations.

In April, US Congress approved a major round of military aid to both Israel and Ukraine. A total of $95bn included $60bn (63 percent) for Ukraine, $26.4bn (28 percent) for Israel and $8.1bn (9 percent) for the Asia Pacific region relating to a possible threat from China.

The US is the world’s biggest provider of military aid. So, what exactly is military aid and which countries benefit the most?

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