General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Universal Basic Income [View all]SickOfTheOnePct
(8,710 posts)~$10 trillion (rough estimate based on 2023 tax stats), and eliminating poverty programs would save ~$500 billion.
Add in ~$700 billion for other tax payments (not including payroll taxes, as those are dedicated), and now we're at about $11.2 trillion available to spend.
Outlays under this plan would include non-discretionary spending (again, not including SS or Medicare), coming in at ~$1.2 trillion, discretionary spending at ~$1.7 trillion, interest on the debt at about $660 billion, and UBI at ~$13 trillion, for a total of ~%16.5 trillion.
So, and again, just ballpark figures, we're looking at a deficit (one year) of around $4 trillion.
And although the inefficiencies of taking money just to send it back would a small rounding error in the overall numbers, it would seem to make more sense to just give a flat $52,000 tax credit on taxes owed rather than take and then send it back.