I love simple solutions; magic bullets that make problems go away. I really do. Complex government programs make us poorer and less free. So I really want to believe in the Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) idea, which has been mentioned by a lot of commenters (and Milton Friedman.) But I just don’t see how the numbers add up. (For similar reasons, I’d like a single tax, but think that given our level of government spending we need a progressive payroll, property, carbon and VAT tax system.)