25 signatures reached
To: Congress and presidential candidates
Basic Income and Medicare/Medicaid Reform
Establish the $1200 federal payment permanently on a monthly basis to all who are eligible under the present emergency bill, in the process abolishing current welfare programs (except SNAP); and combining Medicaid with Medicare.
Why is this important?
All of a sudden, Americans overwhelmingly support the principle of federal payments to the poor and middle class alike to establish a floor below which they cannot sink. Thus, the status pf the middle class is protected, and, in the case of the poor, the necessities of life are assured.
Americans are now coming to recognize that the economic straitjacket in which most of them find themselves is not their fault, but rather is the result of a fickle and rapidly changing economy, along with tax policies unfavorable to them. Thus there is no moral issue involved in receiving these payments. In fact, with economic pressure relieved, Americans will be freer to pursue advances in their lives, educationally and vocationally. Nobody is going to live off the fat of the land under this modest stipend. Rather, it will serve as an investment in our country's most precious resource: human capital. And for the poor, this will mean the dismantling of the humiliating welfare bureaucracy, with its rules and regulations that have always smacked of a plantation mentality.
Additionally, this reform will help heal the tension between the middle class and the poor, which has always been used by unscrupulous politicians who profit from dividing these two groups that belong on the same page. It will also raise the level of basic consumer demand, which is the chief vehicle on which our economy depends.
Additionally it will provide desperately needed permanent relief to state and local governments - which have been devastated financially by the Virus Depression - by abolishing the requirement that they appropriate money for welfare, as under the present system.
Building on the latter point, we should seize this opportunity to combine Medicare and Medicaid, so both are financed exclusively by the federal government.This would alleviate the longtime Achilles heal of state finances, Medicaid. Not only will this help fill the immediate financial pit the virus has created for the states, but as a permanent feature will free up more state funds for education and other essential local services.
Additionally, the new expanded Medicare will give to the poor the dignity that the program has brought for the last half century to seniors of all income brackets. This proposal does not seek government expansion into any area of medical finance it does not presently control. It simply makes uniform the programs it already runs, both in their coverage and in the source of their funding.
With the economy collapsing, the federal government is able to find $2 trillion to shore it up. This means that in more prosperous times, it would surely be able to do so on a continuous basis.
Tell former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump to support making the $1200 payments a permanent monthly feature of American life and to combine Medicaid and Medicare.
Americans are now coming to recognize that the economic straitjacket in which most of them find themselves is not their fault, but rather is the result of a fickle and rapidly changing economy, along with tax policies unfavorable to them. Thus there is no moral issue involved in receiving these payments. In fact, with economic pressure relieved, Americans will be freer to pursue advances in their lives, educationally and vocationally. Nobody is going to live off the fat of the land under this modest stipend. Rather, it will serve as an investment in our country's most precious resource: human capital. And for the poor, this will mean the dismantling of the humiliating welfare bureaucracy, with its rules and regulations that have always smacked of a plantation mentality.
Additionally, this reform will help heal the tension between the middle class and the poor, which has always been used by unscrupulous politicians who profit from dividing these two groups that belong on the same page. It will also raise the level of basic consumer demand, which is the chief vehicle on which our economy depends.
Additionally it will provide desperately needed permanent relief to state and local governments - which have been devastated financially by the Virus Depression - by abolishing the requirement that they appropriate money for welfare, as under the present system.
Building on the latter point, we should seize this opportunity to combine Medicare and Medicaid, so both are financed exclusively by the federal government.This would alleviate the longtime Achilles heal of state finances, Medicaid. Not only will this help fill the immediate financial pit the virus has created for the states, but as a permanent feature will free up more state funds for education and other essential local services.
Additionally, the new expanded Medicare will give to the poor the dignity that the program has brought for the last half century to seniors of all income brackets. This proposal does not seek government expansion into any area of medical finance it does not presently control. It simply makes uniform the programs it already runs, both in their coverage and in the source of their funding.
With the economy collapsing, the federal government is able to find $2 trillion to shore it up. This means that in more prosperous times, it would surely be able to do so on a continuous basis.
Tell former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump to support making the $1200 payments a permanent monthly feature of American life and to combine Medicaid and Medicare.