Phligm Phlagm 2

[philmophlegm]

"Seumas Milne will finish Labour off"

I wonder if the Ugandan league is included in Football Manager...

The D&D monsters based on cheap Chinese toys.

Why We Should Defend The Right To Be Offensive. (I reserve the right to believe that some of the comments on this article were made by idiots.)

Tax credits are complex and expensive. Why not simply a negative income tax?

Good advice for writers, especially of non-fiction. This article grabbed me early on when he took the piss out of Neil ‘my hair will blow ever so attractively in the wind if I stand on this clifftop’ Oliver.

37 brilliant Halloween costumes

Are we seeing the beginnings of a new species in north America?

Paedophiles should be allowed to adopt. (How could that possibly go wrong?)

Former Labour minister: "Labour has jumped the shark."

Comments

[purplecat]

Negative income tax seems to be what a lot of the left's ideas about a "citizen's wage" amount to (at least any semi-coherent explanation of a what citizen's wage is that I've actually managed to track down). I've always sort of assumed, therefore, that it is wishful thinking magic economics, even though on the surface it looks plausible so it's interesting seeing it advocated by an organisation I assume is to the right rather than to the left of centre.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a more market-based solution that traditional benefits regimes, and over the years the sort of people who have advocated it have been market enthusiasts like Hayek and Friedman. But it also avoids the more intrusive forms of means-testing.

In truth, you could probably make it either a leftist or a rightist policy simply by choosing different levels at which the tax becomes positive.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

"...it also avoids the more intrusive forms of means-testing."

True, but it does lead to the big question of who gets the income.

And the even bigger one of "Hold on, I paid NI for 35 years to get a £7,000 pension; are you now giving people £X,000 a year for nothing?" :-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Also true. Mind you, that myth is something I find quite annoying - the idea that National Insurance pays for _your_ pension as if it was some kind of defined contribution pension scheme. I can see why so many people think this - it's how politicians have always sold it - but it's ultimately just a tax, albeit one that the government has to put towards health and welfare spending.

[purplecat]

On the whole I'm in favour of policies (both in benefits and taxation) that simplify matters - I tend to assume that the savings in the costs of administration and enforcement and the reduction in barriers to entry overall outweighs the potential increase in free-loaders (especially given that the definition of a free-loader seems to be quite fraught both when talking about benefits claimants and people who minimise the tax they pay).

Though, I've no idea if negative income tax would simplify taxation. Probably not.

I wonder if the leftist/rightist aspect is more to do with language than anything else. After all the leftists call it a "citizen's wage" (or words to that effect) which frames it as an entitlement that the state owes to all citizens equally. While negative income tax frames it more as, as you say, a market solution to both protection of those in need and government finance.