8 Mar 2020
Yesterday's editorial by the Saltpork & Rind was its latest editorializing on the cancellation by the Ford government of a "pilot project" on guaranteed income that was started by the previous Wynne government the year before. You would think the world was coming to an end because this great social experiment was canned, by a conservative.
The basic income research “pilot project”, a hobby-horse of Saltport & Rind editorializing, sought to resolve an important dilemma: whether Lefties were capable of learning from experience, or do they think the rest of us aren’t on to them?
You would think that the project was actually about research, when actually and politically it was the nose of another Marxist camel being poked into the tent. We have plenty of experience with guaranteed basic income and income supplements. What do you think welfare is? UI? The editorial mistakenly mentioned CPP (which isn’t a free giveaway). Look at how Indians have fared since the Federal government guaranteed to look after them! Every time the editorial mentions previous pilot projects, it proves that the research has already been done!
The pilot project was founded on a basic statistical folly common in sociology: the attempt to extrapolate to the general population from the basis of a small sample size. Of course, there are going to be some success stories to boast about in the project – how else are they going to justify expanding it into a general program? Success somewhere was guaranteed. And we can see occasional success in the mass experiments with welfare on a grand scale. Been there, done that. A few diamonds out of a very large rough.
The Liberal party wanted to introduce a new program that would increase government power and control over people’s lives. To fund a basic guaranteed income, taxes would have to be raised dramatically and the government would have to know a lot about you for you to receive it. But over time, the cost of living and pay by employers would adjust to the reality of a basic income, and reduce the value of that basic income near to zero. This isn’t hard to figure out. And all that would be left then is the heightened government power and control.
Conservatives are opposed to more government power and higher taxes, and killed the basic income pilot project in its cradle – much to the shock and disappointment of the Lefties who either never learn, or who think we’re not on to them. Basic income goes beyond Bismarkian social welfare – it is drawn straight from communist theory of from each – to each.
Another Marxian aspect to the editorial is that tactic of holding up Premier Doug Ford as an object of hate. Ford is a liar. Ford is cruel to the poor. Ford ended Ontario’s historic world leadership in basic income. Ford is anti-science. Ford is of the wrong ideology. Ford hurts our heroes. And in case you missed the point, Doug Ford’s misogynist government is slugged right next to the editorial.
The editorial leaves the dilemma unresolved: is it that Lefties never learn from experience, or do they think the rest of us aren’t on to them?
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