If you have such a problem with stagnation you should be looking towards the ever growing pool of wealth at the top of our economy which doesn’t get spent in communities, it gets shuffled around a dozen hedge funds until we call it part of our GDP. The stagnation has gone on for 50 years now, and it isn’t because of entitlements. Check this out the wages have been flat while productivity is up 250%. They keep our money and then use our taxes to fund our own entitlements. This isn’t even about getting something we “don’t deserve” but getting back our slice of the pie. That money is yours and mine we aren’t doing more than taking it back.

I can accept that you don’t believe in ubi for whatever personal reasons you carry but you won’t convince me for a second that productivity and buying power have ever been related in this country.

Below this I attached one of the many studies that shows how universal basic income doesn’t raise unemployment, it actually results in more people getting jobs. If you have any research that disputes that point I’m happy to read it but we’re not gonna get very far on just opinions when we’re talking policy.

As for your points about most politicians supporting money for ukraine or for phizer/moderna, I’m firmly against the citizens united decision and think money should be out of politics so those companies can’t own our government in those fields, plus energy, tech, entertainment, etc. Just because they’re corrupt doesn’t give me an excuse to give up on what I think is right

link

I’m much less worried about the money we give to regular Americans than I am about the billions we send to military contractors for endless wars, the $30 billion in foreign aid that goes out to help prop up dictatorships in developing countries, or that our government pays to pharmaceutical companies in subsidies and unbelievable drug prices because they know they’ll get a spot on the board of directors after their terms end. There are plenty of pools to pick from, and if you think all that spending is necessary, let’s take a look at the companies making record profits while they pay poverty wages. My taxes just end up subsidizing their shitty wages with social security, medicare, welfare, food stamps and everything else that even a minimum wage job used to pay for 50 years ago. I don’t need to see extra handouts, I’m plenty happy to just redirect some of the ones I see as useless. It won’t introduce any new dollars to the economy, just take them out of the hedge funds invested in these companies.

Got any research to back up those big ideas or did you come up with them yourself? Because I’ve got plenty of studies on deck that show how direct cash payments help communities. The child tax credit was one of the most transformative policies in the country before it was cancelled and that was from a conservative government of all things lol