Occam's safety net

One of the key design principles of Ikanocracy is simplicity, or more precisely minimal complexity. The world is a complex place and complex problems sometimes require complex solutions, but we shouldn't add unnecessary complexity to our solutions. Occam's Razor is the principle that when choosing between two solutions, all other things being equal, you should choose the simpler one.

We could apply this principle to other government functions besides decision-making. Consider the various government programs that disburse monies to citizens: welfare, unemployment insurance, social security, old age pension,  children's allowance and probably a number of other minor programs as well.  There seems to be a lot of overlap, bureaucracy, and unnecessary complexity (as well as unintentional social engineering) in these programs.

With these programs we are trying to solve the problem of ensuring that no citizen goes hungry, or lacks shelter in a developed country. I don't know the history of how all these programs developed, but I can imagine that people saw some segment society that were lacking these basics, and so developed a program to help them. Then some other segment was still lacking, so another program was developed to help them. The process continues, with add-ons to old programs and additions of new programs each time a segment of the populace needed help.

As an Ikanocrat, I am willing to be guided by any decision reached through an Ikanocratic process, but   if I was designing a system ensure that all members of society has access to a reasonable level of support, I would not do it through a patchwork of programs, but through a minimum guaranteed income, which is managed through the income tax system.

It would only require some minor changes to the tax system.  Instead of non-refundable tax credits, people would get refundable tax credits (i.e. the minimum guaranteed income). At age 18, citizens would receive $X per year. Any additional income earned would be taxed (on a progressive scale)  until a person earning $Y dollars per year would have their minimum guaranteed income taxed back. The actual values of X and Y could be determined by the government of the day, and could be tied to the per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product), so the better the country does economically, the better its lower end does.

We could then get rid of all the bureaucracy associated with the patchwork of programs, which would save money, and the increased transparency and simplicity of the system would result in increased confidence in the fairness of the system. For those who say we shouldn't just be giving money to people I would counter that we already have a de facto minimum guaranteed income anyway, except for a small marginalized segment of society that has fallen though the cracks of our current social safety net. I'm sure that right now some bureaucrat is designing a program to add complexity to the system and catch some of these people who have fallen through the cracks. Let's cut through this patchwork with Occam's Razor and replace it with Occam's safety net.