Basic income showdown in Houston

Harris County Attorney Christian Menafee is ready to take on Kenny Boy Paxton in a legal battle over the county's guaranteed income. (Kenny Boy should just leave well enough alone; if Harris Uplift is like most such, it will die on its own. And, Andrew Yang is at least halfway right in saying this is "not socialism." Sadly, the biggest fanbois of basic income want to use it in a libertarian way to gut things like unemployment insurance, SSDI, etc.)

Update, April 23: The Texas Supreme Court has granted a stay to Kenny Boy on his writ of mandamus. 

Just look at basic income guru (and that's used with ALL connotative as well as denotative meanings of "guru") Scott Santens:

• Called Trump "the basic income Moses," per a piece where Scott is himself associated with the World Economic Forum, as in Davos, while getting more alarmist about AI then than Lanier is today;
• Wants to junk entitlements, including even trimming Social Security — more here;
  
• Is a crypto-bro;
• Denies that there are libertarian and non-libertarian versions of BI that don't square with each other;
• And on all of this, can't do math on how to pay for his ideas.

As for "die on its own"? Most BI pilot projects, at the municipal, county, or, IIRC provincial level in Canada in the past, have been terminated by later local governments, as in, terminated before the drop-down date on them set by the original, approving governments. Harris Uplift is also a pilot. The $500 a month is not bad. The 2,000 households out of what could easily be 100,000 in Harris County, if not 200,000, is a drop in the bucket. (Reflecting me, the Trib's story on the state Supreme Court notes that Austin is looking at resurrecting a pilot program that it discontinued.) Alaska's Permanent Fund will be as oil production there continues to decline, since that's what funds it. (The 2023 payout, full year, was just $1,312, which is really a drop in the bucket on Alaska cost of living. That's $110 a month, or about $70 a month, if that, in Houston dollars.)

Also, in addition to the above, BI is not a magic wand. And, if you don't believe in Modern Monetary Theory (I don't, and "believe" is the right word, as I a few years ago said it's "Maoism or New Ageism") how do you pay for anything beyond a pilot?

Finally, this IS income. If Kenny Boy loses his lawsuit, while Texas doesn't have a state income tax, Uncle Sam does. Let us hope that County Judge Lina Hidalgo informs people of that.