Poverty Level Social Security or Full Retirement and a House?
In a system wherein politicians can legally take bribes and then vote to give money and favors to the people who bribe them, it is no wonder that we have a hugely bloated government budget. These politicians must then seek to find ways of squeezing more revenue out of the population to fund their ever-growing budgets with the result of turning the nation into a kleptocracy.
Under Randviscracy, I propose a balanced form of taxation in which costs and expenditures are linked. The idea is that costs are funded by the activities which make them necessary. An example is court costs are paid by fees on criminals and people who lose court cases.
A 15 % flat tax with no deductions for people and corporations would balance out the proportion paid by individuals and by companies. Under the current system, businesses can deduct many expenses and create artificial losses to minimize their taxes. This is how Amazon pays no corporate tax on over $10 billion in profit. The result of this is that individuals pay $1,718 billion in taxes while corporations pay only $230 billion in corporate tax.
Under the budgets I propose below, you will see that it is possible to provide higher levels of government benefits for less. For example under the current system the average paid to disabled persons is only $15,096 per year. Which is almost poverty level. Under Randviscracy, disability compensation is set to half of the median income which as of 2019 was $61,000, therefore a disabled person would receive $30,500 per year.
How about retirement? Social Security payments are embarrassingly low. The average Social Security benefit is $17,640 per year. Under Randviscracy, retired citizens are also entitled to half the median income, the same as the disabled.
Double the amount? Who is going to pay for this?!
Under Randviscracy, 3/4 of all personal and business income tax goes into disability and retirement funds. Under the current US system, income and corporate taxes are separate from payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are what funds social security, Medicare and Medicaid. The cost of these programs as of 2019 is $2,091 billion per year. Payroll taxes only collect $1,243 billion though, so every year this increases the national debt by $848 billion, for which the citizens are stuck with the bill to pay the interest!
Under Randviscracy the flat income tax would bring in an estimated $2,789 billion and the flat business revenue tax an additional $1,342.05 billion. These numbers are based on 15% of the 2019 income levels for each group. The flat tax would eliminate the payroll tax and bring the proportion of amounts paid by individuals and business back into balance, while greatly increasing revenue.
Let’s break down at how much the Randviscracy disability, retirement and $25k child credit credit programs would cost.
Cost of disability program
Percent of working age population disabled | 10.6% |
Half of median income | $30,500 |
Population of the US (millions) | 328.2 |
Total cost (in billions) = (Population) x (percent of disabled) x (cost) | $1,061 |
Full market in health to replace Medicare/Medicaid
Randviscracy does not include the Medicare & Medicaid systems. This allows almost double the benefits paid directly to citizens. Under Randviscracy, the medical system is deregulated so that a full market of low-quality/low-cost to high-quality/high-cost can develop. Full competition in the market will keep prices down. The current system of paying exorbitant amounts through Medicare and Medicaid drive up costs for everyone causing insanely high medical insurance costs. Additionally Randviscracy removes the patent system and instead relies on courts to protect from product copying. This ensure a competitive medicine market and low costs. Under the current system a company can patent a medicine which creates a monopoly allowing them to charge exorbitant prices.
Cost of retirement program
Number of retired people in US (millions) | 47.8 |
Half of median income | $30,500 |
Cost (billions) = (Retired people) x (half of median income) | $1,457.9 |
Cost of $25k child credit
Randviscracy includes a program to provide $25k for a number of children a family has based on IQ level of the parents. In summary, this program provides an upward pressure to raise the average IQ of the population and aiding all families in obtaining their first home. This program eliminates welfare housing(section 8) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Saving $688.1 billion per year (this savings also includes the cutting of food stamps which gets lumped into the same budget. Under Randviscracy, welfare is only for those unable to work who would then qualify for disability or retirement).
The child credit would cost an estimated $94.79 billion per year. This figure is based on the current number of births per year, 3,791,712 x $25k. This is most likely over-estimating the cost, under the program not all of these births would qualify.
Read more about the child credit on this page.
Comparison of the programs
So under the current US system, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, the Health Department, HUD cost a total of $ 2,831.4 billion per year. In exchange the American people get benefits which barely cover the cost of living, an overpriced and under-performing healthcare system which drives up the price on all the other citizens by removing competition and artificially inflating demand and a permanent, fatherless underclass dependent on state welfare living in crime infested, government-financed apartment blocks. The funding for these is insufficient and therefore adds more to the national debt total which currently incurs a annual cost of $275 billion in interest payments.
With Randviscracy’s programs you get retirement and disability programs which pay almost twice as much directly to the citizens, who then turn to the market and can choose their own housing and medical care. The citizens also get $25k per child to use toward their first home. This would create an incentive to form families and raise children, as opposed to the welfare system which encourages government dependency and single parent households. The combined cost of the retirement and disability programs are estimated to cost $2,518.9 billion. The $25k per child credit is funded through a real estate tax (read more about the child credit program here). With Randviscracy for less money spent, the people would have almost twice as much in their pockets each month and a large portion or all of their home paid for.
Bonus: the surplus goes toward small business loans
Did you notice that the total cost of the Randviscracy programs was $2,518.9 billion while the estimated revenue of the income and business flat taxes totaled $4,131.05 billion? As I mentioned earlier 3/4 of this income would go toward funding these programs (up to 1/4 of all tax revenue are reserved for the military and space programs). 3/4 of $4,131.05 billion equals $3,098.29 billion, leaving a surplus of $579.39 billion, in contrast to the $848 billion deficit of Social Security (this doesn’t even include welfare/section 8 housing’s contribution to the deficit).
Under Randviscracy, banks are nationalized and this surplus is used for minimal interest loans to small businesses. The interests rates are required to be set at the lowest levels to pay expenses.
Under this system, not only would people get a large portion or possibly all of their first home paid for, there would be a fund for entrepreneurs to have access to minimal interest loans to create jobs instead of welfare dependency.
What if a deficit occurs?
In the case of a deficit, a random selection would be made to either 1. cut the military part of the spending, 2. cut in benefits levels or 3. a raise in taxes until either a surplus is achieved again or the next annual budget planning where the random selection of which one would be re-selected.
Doesn’t a flat tax disproportionately affect the poor?
Under my system there would be no payroll tax(7.65%) and no sales tax (average of 7%) = 14.65%. So for only 1.5% in additional taxes the poor get nearly double the retirement and disability benefits.
The current system has many tax loopholes which favor the wealthy, by eliminating these we can afford to have more generous programs which will greatly benefit the poor. The elderly would have enough benefit to not be a burden on their children and more than likely would accumulate money to pass on as well as a home assisted by the $25k child credit. The child credit would help new families to avoid poverty by reducing or eliminating mortgage debt.
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