LETTER:Bad idea

Every January provides an opportunity for our legislators to showcase new bad ideas they want to impose on the citizens of our fair state.

This year’s crop includes a real beauty: Universal Basic Income.

Universal Basic Income is free money taken, it seems to me, from those who work and pay taxes and given to those who don’t. HB 1045 proposes an “evergreen pilot program,” limited to 7,500 recipients, but we know of course that this is just the camel’s nose under the tent flap.

The intention is to eventually bring the whole hairy, smelly camel of Universal Basic Income for all into the tent.

You can participate if your income is twice the poverty level.

“Self-attestation of income” (no one will check) is explicitly allowed.

It is sufficient to self-attest that you are, for example, an immigrant, or that you are exiting the criminal justice system and have been referred by a government agency.

For an example of stupid ideas at the federal level, look at the student loan forgiveness plan.

It transfers half a trillion dollars from those who got a job right out of high school or paid for their own higher education to college students who largely have better earnings prospects or come from wealthier families.

As long as we keep electing Democrats in Olympia and Washington, D.C., we will get schemes that undermine personal accountability and take money from those who work hard for a living and give it to those who do not.

Kaj Ahlburg

Port Angeles