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From: chrisr@hcrvax.UUCP (Chris Retterath)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Baby bonuses are silly.
Message-ID: <1068@hcrvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Aug-84 18:01:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: hcrvax.1068
Posted: Mon Aug 27 18:01:29 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Aug-84 02:39:08 EDT
References: <980@hcrvax.UUCP> <5075@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto
Lines: 53

In reply to Dave Sherman's (dave@utcsrgv.UUCP) reply to my original note (!),
I still beleive the system is all wrong. Dave raises a good point when
he mentions:

~ The only way to have you not receive a baby bonus in the first place,
~ or only receive half as much, would be for the Wealth and Hellfire
~ Canada people to have records of your current income, so they know
~ how much to send you.

My reply to this is, of course, why bother? A negative income tax would
accomplish the same thing, albeit without a sum coming in monthly.
Now, it wouldn't look as much like a "bonus", but then it isn't a bonus
in the sense that people do not have more babies so that they can collect
an extra $30.00 a month! The "bonus" will not even keep a baby in diapers!
(Dave calculates that at maximum Ontario tax levels, 50% of the income is
taxed -- in other words, once a month a cheque arrives for $30.00, and at
the end of the year, out of the total $360.00, $180 is taxed away.
All that work to give someone $180.00! *I* call that silly!!)

This is how most proposed negative taxes are supposed to work:
if you had less than a certain amount in income that year, you would get
a grant to bring up your income to that minimal figure. If you had more,
you would pay tax. The whole thing is administered by Nat'l Revenue,
and calculated when the income tax form is completed.

Notice, now, that if that minimal income figure was set to the
so-called "poverty line", then Canada would have solved poverty; we would no
longer have any poor people! All those silly welfare giveaways could stop,
(but note: I consider equalization payments, subsidized housing, CPP,
GIS, et cetera, to be "welfare"). There are studies that show the cost
to be lower, given that the program is administered in one department
in one objective review of income ONLY. And think what it does for the poor!
Now they are not penalized for trying to get a job, losing their welfare
privileges, only to have to re-apply (and wait several weeks) if that job
is lost. Now they are not penalized for remaining married -- it is long been
the case that if you were a welfare father, you could do MORE for your
family by faking an abandonment, allowing your wife to apply for welfare
as a single mother with dependents, and then surreptiously send her money
from your continued welfare or job monies!
Now they are not penalized for owning a car/house/et cetera, as they
currently are when applying for welfare.

The final item of discussion: the universality of our social systems.
Someone please explain to me why it better to give everyone a taxable
benefit at considerable cost, and then spend more money trying to tax
back most or all of the benefits? Is it supposed to feel more "fair"?
I guess most people do not realize the costs of administering such programs,
a cost which of course is felt in a higher tax load.

On our own heads, be it!
-- 
		Chris Retterath
		{decvax,utcsrgv,utzoo}!hcr!hcrvax!chrisr