Yup. Too many people confuse minimum income with basic income/negative income tax.The latter two are what economists generally recommend because of incentives and easy of management.
Basic income and negative income tax are nearly economically equivalent (with different tax scales). But basic income is probably the better solution of the two. The problem with the negative income tax is that taxing happens on a yearly basis, while income works better on a monthly basis (and even that is overestimating the judgment of some people). So you really want something to fix the general disconnect.
And the absolutely easiest way is to simply pay out a basic income to every adult on a monthly basis while withholding taxes for the IRS. The IRS then doing its normal work on a yearly basis.
Yeah but what about the existing debt? That has to be paid off before we can improve anything else.
Money and Debt is a (not so) simple zero sum game. Whenever a dollar is created, an equivalent debt/obligation is created. It always balances out to zero.
So who do you want to reduce their savings so that the US government can have less debt? Once you have decided on that, it is easy to discuss the actions the government should take to cause it to happen.
Fair means each group pays the same percentage of the overall taxes.
Only if every person owns the exact same amount of production capital. Otherwise it is incredibly unfair.
Tax work best when the tax happens when the money moves.
Not really. Taxes works best when they target production directly at the source as it is being produced.
Targeting the sale means that you are targeting the wealth production way too late in the chain. In any sufficiently advanced society you end up with large amounts of wasted production capacity.
So make it a trimmed mean
I think that is exactly what he suggested. Median is a trimmed mean.
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm?