When a country is bold enough to introduce a UBI, society will undergo some radical changes in how we think about governments and money.
With a UBI, everybody gets the same amount of money from the government, regardless of their needs or contributions. How does that sit with a mindset we have had for decades called user pays?
The brief Wikipedia article on user pays mentions the most common example, which is petrol/gasoline tax. Ultimately it is a cop-out by governments, just like out-sourcing and privatization. If you want better roads, we will need to put up the price of gas.
That is the kind of simplistic logic that satisfies (fools) the common man. But it is very wrong. Roads and road travel are ubiquitous. While most of us drive, all of us depend on roads. Almost every person and business benefits from roads to some degree, directly and indirectly. Their usefulness is so universal that taxing fuel due to a “user pays” concept is simply wrong.
Aside from trucks – as they primarily are what causes damage. A tax on their activities is warranted.
The cost of infrastructure should be borne by all of society, and all of society should have equal access. That way of thinking is an extension of UBI, and also a part of a parallel concept known as Universal Basic Services.
With the rise of electric vehicles, governments are scrambling to keep their fuel taxes happening so that roads can be funded. In Victoria Australia, there is already a kilometre tax for electric vehicles, which is the antithesis of encouraging such vehicles. Now Texas is charging EV owners an annual fee.
I look forward to a country adopting a “roads for all” policy and getting rid of the blame-shifting, responsibility-shirking road taxes once and for all.