To the editor: Universal basic income fixes all
A $12,000 annual, guaranteed, and nontaxable dividend for every adult American could be a game-changer for the 78 percent of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 05:00:00 GMT
link -- with images
As a physician and author who is dedicated to improving the quality of life for all, I’ve found that the key to achieving cost-effective, quality care is prioritizing wellness. That means optimizing sleep, nutrition, fitness, and drug prevention, along with emotional, financial, social, and environmental health.
Universal basic income — a $12,000 annual, guaranteed, and nontaxable dividend for every adult American — could be a healthy game-changer for the 78 percent of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck.
UBI has been proposed by founding father Thomas Paine, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Richard Nixon. UBI programs have been shown to make a positive impact on women’s health, newborn and childhood health and development, family stability, academic and career success, mental health, and diminished hospitalizations, obesity, drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, crime, and markedly reduced teen pregnancy.
In contrast to welfare programs, which are cumbersome, demean recipients, and disincentivize work, UBI is easy to administer. It would grow the labor force by 4.5 million, catalyzing new business, educational opportunity, economic mobility, creativity, and renewed self-worth.
The UBI plan outlined by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang would be achieved through cost savings on welfare, incarceration, homelessness, and economic growth and revenue from a 10 percent value-added tax to recoup revenue from billion-dollar tech giants like Amazon that pay little or no income tax.
According to the Roosevelt Institute, UBI would grow America’s economy by roughly 13 percent over eight years, generating $2.5 trillion. Metro Toledo’s 450,000 adults alone will bring $5.4 billion to our local economy each year. Imagine the boost to our collective well-being, ushering in the dawn of a happier and healthier population.
DR. MURRAY HOWE
Sylvania
Let women choose
Ohio seems to be slipping further and further into the past. Our state legislature seems bent on returning women to a time before they had the right to vote, the right to own property, and perhaps worst of all, the right to have control over their own bodies. These ridiculous and abusive bills aimed at outlawing a person’s right to safe and legal abortion access should be thrown out and their sponsors laughed out of office.
After all, the year is 2019, not 1919 or 1819. The vast majority of Ohioans embrace a woman’s right to choose her own destiny.
C. A. MATTHEWS
South Toledo
The Lord’s work
President Trump is on a mission from God. He is “the chosen one.” Many people say he was ordained by God, and those who oppose him are human scum and possessed by demons.
Those 10 Commandments we learned were all wrong.
Thou shalt not commit adultery, but if you do, pay the women off to keep them quiet.
Thou shalt not steal unless it’s from your family’s charitable foundation. Those veterans and children didn’t really need the money anyway.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. Remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, but when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. You can grab them.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were refugees fleeing for their lives to a foreign country, but that was such a long, long time ago.
Nowadays, we drive them out or throw them in cages.
The President is doing the Lord’s work here, people, so just back right off.
ANN OBERSKI
Wauseon