In 2025, the US Federal government pulled in a a grand total of $5.16 trillion in revenue.
Giving all 258 million adult US citizens $1000 a month totals to $3.096 trillion per year.
Giving them all $2000 a month totals to $6.192 trillion per year - more than all US tax revenue from all sources combined.
Of course, we already have a $1.7 trillion deficit, with $38 trillion and counting in debt without the UBI, and I assume you're not planning on defaulting on our $1 trillion+ in annual interest payments on the debt either, right?
How about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which by themselves take up over half of the entire federal budget, are we keeping those too?
If you'd like, we could confiscate 100% of the assets of every billionaire that's a US citizen and hope to sell all of the non-liquid asssets at market prices, that'll get us 9 months worth of current federal spending levels - less if we're adding UBI on top and not getting rid of any other programs.
Now if you want to get creative, we could keep funding the military and use it to go after all of the other global billionaires, that'll get us almost through a full 4-year presidential cycle, at the low, low cost of invading just about every other sovereign nation on earth to rob their citizens, too.
We could also have the treasury start minting trillion dollar coins to both pay off the debt and fund the UBI, but I don't think you're going to like your $2000 monthly UBI check as much when market rent on a studio is $200,000 a month.
If you have better ideas on how to pay for this, I'm all ears.
Pretty much every economist who has ever thought seriously about UBI has already given an answer. Most of the funding would come from abolishing progressive income taxes. Instead, the highest (or second highest) bracket would start at 0. With the current federal tax rates and incomes, that would raise an additional ~$3 trillion/year.
Giving all 258 million adult US citizens $1000 a month totals to $3.096 trillion per year.
Giving them all $2000 a month totals to $6.192 trillion per year - more than all US tax revenue from all sources combined.
Of course, we already have a $1.7 trillion deficit, with $38 trillion and counting in debt without the UBI, and I assume you're not planning on defaulting on our $1 trillion+ in annual interest payments on the debt either, right?
How about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which by themselves take up over half of the entire federal budget, are we keeping those too?
If you'd like, we could confiscate 100% of the assets of every billionaire that's a US citizen and hope to sell all of the non-liquid asssets at market prices, that'll get us 9 months worth of current federal spending levels - less if we're adding UBI on top and not getting rid of any other programs.
Now if you want to get creative, we could keep funding the military and use it to go after all of the other global billionaires, that'll get us almost through a full 4-year presidential cycle, at the low, low cost of invading just about every other sovereign nation on earth to rob their citizens, too.
We could also have the treasury start minting trillion dollar coins to both pay off the debt and fund the UBI, but I don't think you're going to like your $2000 monthly UBI check as much when market rent on a studio is $200,000 a month.
If you have better ideas on how to pay for this, I'm all ears.