I took a cursory look at what Yang’s proposed monthly $1,000 giveaway would look like. Yang isn’t going to get the nomination, but I guarantee there will be one of the 3 or 4 finalist proposing some program that mirrors what Yang has thought up. There are real winners and losers in this nifty little magic trick.
Lets look at the numbers. Lets say, for simplicity’s sake, that the total population of the United States is 1,000 people. The total annual cost would be $12,000,000 (1k monthly for 12 months times 1000 people). But we wouldn’t have a thousand folks paying for this program, we’d have 205. Here is how I got the 205 number:
Total Pop: 1000
Less those over 65 on Social Security (16% of the population) =160
Less children/kids (23 percent of total population less seniors) =193
Less those unemployed (5% of 1K less seniors and kids) =32
Less those that pay no tax (45% excluding those above) =410
Total Exempt 795
Total Payers 205
Now when you take the total cost ($12,000,000) divided by 205 payers you get an average cost per actual taxpayer of $58,594 a year in new taxes ($4,883 monthly).
The cost of Yang’s proposal? $3,924,000,000,000 annually.
So the real question becomes why would Yang propose such a ridiculous thing? Because the ‘winner to looser’ ratio is so great (795 to 205): Almost 4 to 1.
Now most people that pay taxes believe that this program would mean they would pay $1,000 more monthly and get $1,000 back. That guy sitting over in the corner with a wife and six kids is thinking he’s going to pay another $1,000 in taxes monthly and get $8,000 back. Now there is a whole shitload of folks that pay no taxes whatsoever thinking that they are going to get a free $1K monthly dropped into their account. That welfare queen with 4 little ones is looking at $5K monthly; there are thousands upon thousands of these folks.
I’m betting that as the field narrows one or more of the dem candidates will propose some variation of Yang’s folly. I’d bet that it will (to a large degree) be effective in garnering the votes of the gimmedats. Unfortunately, I also believe that this soft-selling of socialism is so attractive to our ignorant and un/mis-schooled masses that we won’t go slipping down the proverbial slope, we’ll be slamming the throttle to the firewall.