Dori: Kim Schrier isn’t ruling out universal basic income

To close out this past Friday’s show with Today’s Sign the End is Near, I was talking about how Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is proposing a universal basic income. This is where government just cuts you a check for sitting on your lazy butt. Finland — the country the socialists around here are always holding up as a model — has tried a universal basic income for a couple years and decided they need to stop.

One of the reasons Finland is abandoning the universal basic income is because they discovered that for every $1,000 they just gave people, those people reduced their work earnings by about $660. They had an incentive to not work. That’s exactly the opposite of how it should be.

The reason we should get away from an income tax in the U.S. is that you tax things to reduce that item. Think of the cigarette tax and the liquor tax — it’s to get people to smoke and drink less. We shouldn’t tax income. We should have a fair tax on consumption, when you buy stuff.

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So when I was talking about Kamala Harris, it was to highlight the Democratic candidates’ trend these days: “Vote for us, and we will take other people’s money and give it to you.” I just thought I was talking about a California senator who may or may not run for president in two years.

But after I got off the air, a listener sent me a sound-clip of a race you may be voting in right now, the 8th Congressional District. What I said last week is that Dino Rossi is an unexciting candidate. But Kim Schrier, even though she lives on the Eastside, is the epitome of an urban, Seattle, far-left liberal. The thing is, whoever represents the 8th District is representing the rural people over in Cle Elum, and in parts of Chelan County all the way to Wenatchee. These are rural people who believe in working for what they get, rather than having government hijack someone else’s stuff to give it to you.

Imagine my shock when a listener sent me a clip of Kim Schrier from last week’s debate with Dino Rossi. Schrier was asked about automation and artificial intelligence taking jobs in coming years, and how to prevent unemployment in the future.

When we get there, I think we can talk about things like a universal basic income … my eye is on that, but fortunately, we have not come to that place quite yet.

So Kim Schrier is proposing that we look into a universal basic income. Of course, they call it a “tax credit,”  but if you don’t pay federal income taxes like 50 percent of Americans, then the government just cuts you a check. And what Kamala Harris proposed, is that if you make under $50,000 a year, the government would just give you $3,000 a year.

I don’t know how much Kim Schrier thinks people should get for sitting around on their butts, but it is a horrible idea. It is a failure in practice. Even socialist Finland has abandoned it, as I told you. Bridgewater Associates did a study finding that giving everyone in the nation $12,000 a year — one of the figures that has been tossed around — would cost taxpayers $3.8 trillion. We don’t have the money to just give people payments for doing nothing, Dr. Schrier. It’s an incredibly stupid idea.

But more than stupid, it’s a corrosive idea. We should be encouraging each other, and our kids, to work. You want the equivalent of a universal basic income? Get a second job. If you work just 10 hours a week, you can get the few thousands a year that she says government should take from other people and give to you. I know that working isn’t as much fun as sitting around watching TV and playing video games. But I have great economic news — there are more jobs than job-seekers in this country. If you want to work, you can get a job. If you want a second job, you can get it.

I find it so scary that this is increasingly becoming the Democrats’ message. I thought it would hold off until the 2020 presidential race, but when I find out that in our own local 8th District Congressional District, that Kim Schrier would be interested in taking money from hardworking people and giving it to the most slothful among us — that is something scary.

Dino Rossi, as I said, is a nice guy but an unexciting candidate. However, Kim Schrier’s proposals are an outright dangerous message. If you want a universal basic income, go get a second job. I know that’s a message that people like Kim Schrier hate — actually working for money. I don’t know how you can have the initiative to go to med school, become a doctor, and yet believe in the laziest of policies.

Wait, I do understand — she’s a Democrat, she has to pander to the base, and that’s what they want to hear. The government will take other people’s stuff and give it to me.

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