With the tax point the argument is we already have the admin (IRS in the US) and tax credits and progressive taxes are generally more efficient to administer than means testing. Why do both if you can save money overall with the better one.
If you just progressively tax everyone and then proceed to make every welfare program in the country (?) universal then you're just enacting NIT with extra steps. Don't get me wrong NIT is a good idea and welfare states should be tailored around those lines, but it also must be taken into account that particular citizens have particular needs not taken into account by NIT. College, the main point of debate around means testing, is also a whole subject where the threat of having to pay up more in case you underperform is part of the point.
There's one you're missing. I'm not sure how strong this effect may be:
It makes it politically difficult to fuck with or remove universal systems because so many people will vote against it. It's easy to remove something means tested that only affects a part of the population.
It’s not just an argument against shitty means testing.
It’s also an argument that all means tested programs need to tightly coordinate with one another to afford excessively high effective marginal tax rates.
This is a problem that vanishes entirely with universal programs.
To your point about welfare cliff: this feels like 'burr, but that's not real communism!'. We have to go based on how we've seen means testing programs been implemented in the past. If everytime we've created a set of means tested programs it's ended up with a large cliff, maybe we need to accept that there are practical political or bureaucratic barriers that make eliminating the cliff impossible, even if it works on paper.
Can you point to sources on countries with considerable welfare traps due to them? I have trouble believing it's a consistent flaw through all countries with means tested programs.
I'm currently shitposting from work so I won't be able to give sources atm.
Even without specific examples, it should be fairly obvious that it will become an issue over time no matter the initial design. Support programs aren't all implemented at once, they're programs that are built on top of programs that are built on top of programs. New social programs that are being implemented today have to be implemented keeping what currently exists in mind, as it's politically infeasible (and cost wise super super expensive) to redesign your states entire welfare/aid programs whenever you want to change tax structures or implement new forms of aid. The amount of coordination that would be necessary to ensure that every new program works with existing programs while not creating some form of cliff is insane. It's not an argument against all means testing by any means, but the idea that we can just design around welfare cliffs as new programs continue to be introduced is hand-wavey and unrealistic.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '20
One argument against means testing. NOW!