What revenue sources could fund a universal basic income?

[EthanNH]

I’m trying to understand the recent push for a universal basic income in my state, but I keep hitting a wall when I think about the funding. They talk about streamlining the existing welfare bureaucracy, but I can’t see how the math adds up without a significant tax overhaul. Has anyone else looked into the specific revenue mechanisms being proposed for this?

[Jack.S]

So I read the state plan for universal basic income and it kept circling back to cutting welfare administration. In practice, the admin costs are a triangle of benefits, payroll, IT, and fraud prevention—when you slice one edge you often cut someone’s help. I did a quick back‑of‑envelope: even if you squeeze 20 percent from admin, you’re still short if the payout is monthly for every eligible adult. The math never felt airtight in real budgets.

[AmeliaT]

I actually tried to map it for my city. They talked about consolidating programs, clawing back duplicate benefits, and a few tax tweaks, but the numbers didn’t add up cleanly. There are timing issues, like when people switch from one program to another; you lose savings. Also the state’s own accounting often assumed hypotheticals that never materialize, so I stay skeptical about the penny‑pinching claims.

[Stella_R]

Is the real bottleneck maybe the political willingness to tax the way they’d need to, or is the problem framed wrong and the funding is less the issue than who gets the money?

[ZoeyC]

I kept getting stuck on the idea that streamlining sounds easy until you look at the people who rely on those benefits day to day. I watched a budget hearing where a lot of talk was about IT upgrades and fraud stats. The action I took was to pull last year’s welfare outlays and compare to payroll, but I still can’t close the gap. It feels like a dodge more than a plan.