Income: Guarantee program is reckless fantasy
Re: “Woodards, other mayors support guaranteed income program,” (TNT, 7/8).
Tacoma’s mayor supports a program to give all residents a guaranteed income of $500 to $1,000 per month.
If the city gave $500 a month to the approximately 168,000 Tacoma residents over 18 years of age, the cost would be over $84 million per month or over $1 billion per year.
The 2019/2020 biannual general fund budget for Tacoma is only $514.6 million.
The mayor advocates that the money should come from the federal government. But it would have to do it for all citizens and is currently $3.7 trillion in debt. Simply printing money would be unsustainable.
The U.S. would end up with hyperinflation just like Venezuela, and the dollar would be worthless.
It sure would be nice if our political leaders knew something about economics before proposing/supporting these spending dreams.
Henry Deck, Spanaway
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 7:59 AM with the headline "Income: Guarantee program is reckless fantasy."