Summary Of Make It Rain

An income is designed to, at the very least, be enough for one person to support their basic needs. With the way society is today, the only well-paying jobs are those that are often undesirable or require a higher education that isn’t affordable for most people. Gray Whisnant, an opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily, states in his article “Make It Rain” that inducing a UBI (Universal Basic Income) will solve not only poverty dilemmas, but also resolve other job-related problems. A universal basic income is a regular salary that comes from either the government or social security that is paid whether or not someone has a job. Whisnant explains its benefits clearly and in such a way that makes me feel inclined to agree with him, but it wasn’t
As everyone will be receiving an income no matter what, poverty will be affected by this change the most. Whisnant states that “In order to eliminate most of the poverty in this country, policymakers must adopt a new strategy that takes our complicated patchwork of programs and transforms them into a more coordinated and comprehensive approach.” (6) His idea is to establish a UBI in order to organize all poverty aids into one more effective and less complicated program. Not only will poverty be greatly affected, but everyone being paid enough to support themselves will change people’s view of certain jobs and it will make it easier for them to pursue their “dream job”. For example, someone who aspires to be an artist gets an office job because they don’t believe they could make enough money otherwise. With an established UBI, they wouldn’t have to struggle to make ends meet with an undesirable career. It wouldn’t matter what they decided to do for a living because they would still have a basic regular income. Overall, it is apparent in his newspaper article that Whisnant thoroughly supports the idea of a UBI and all the benefits it will
He did mention briefly at the end of the article that “There’s no doubt that guaranteeing every American a basic standard of living would have a price tag. Though proposals that have ranged from setting the amount anywhere between $10,000 and $35,000 per household, there are several funding sources that could be adjusted accordingly to pay for the plan.” (Whisnant, 8) He goes on to suggest using the money we now use for low-income programs to pay for a UBI. I don’t believe that would generate enough funds to support this system. The government would have to substantially raise taxes in order to compensate for the missing funds. Not to mention the fact that by earning free money, some people would take advantage of that and use that as their only source of income. They would become lazy while reaping the benefits of a basic income. If Whisnant could have stated a way to counter these arguments, his idea for a UBI would definitely have a bigger