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I need a summary of Charles Murray's book, "In Our Hands", especially of policy details and economic projections
OVERVIEW
Hi there! Thank you for your question requesting a summary of Charles Murray's book, "In Our Hands". The short version is that Charles Murray's book is described as a bold and provocative piece of work that deserves to be widely read and debated. It is hugely thought-provoking and hugely challenging to the intellectually complacent modes of discussion that prevail in modern politics. His main proposal is to replace all safety-net programs with a flat $10,000 annual grant to every American aged 21 and older of which $3,000 must be spent on health insurance. The projected gross cost of the Plan if it had been implemented in 2002 was $2.023 trillion, overstating its cost by about $70 billion; by 2020, the Plan would cost $549 billion less than a continuation of the current system.
Below is a deep dive of my findings.
RESULTS
We researched trusted media sites and of course Charles Murray's book to gather information that would assist us in composing the best response to the question.
SAFETY NET REPLACEMENT
Boston Review describes Charles Murray as "the E.F. Hutton of social policy: when he talks, people listen." Murray is said to get attention when he makes a proposal even if he declares it to be "politically infeasible." His latest book "In Our Hands" is a plan to replace the welfare state. One of his proposals is to "replace all safety-net programs with a flat $10,000 per-person annual grant." He gets rid of welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, agricultural subsidies and other forms of corporate assistance. According to Murray’s calculations, the money realized by terminating these programs would be almost enough to fund his proposal immediately. In its place, every American age 21 and older would receive this annual grant of $10,000, of which $3,000 must be spent on health insurance; and if a person's "earnings from other sources exceeded $50,000, his or her grant would be cut back to $5,000."
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
According to AEI Media, in 2006 when Charles Murray first proposed the idea of the annual grant to Americans instead of "drips of welfare benefits" skepticism was meted out towards it. Yet some European countries have adopted the idea 10 plus years later. In a revised and updated edition of his book, Murray demonstrates that this $10,000 grant would solve problems that the $2 trillion now spent on government transfers cannot solve. Some solutions proposed include:
* Involuntary poverty would be ended
* Not just retirement for workers, but comfortable retirement
* Making work too profitable to stop
* Reintroducing the right incentives for the underclass
* Reinvigorating communities and families
THE PLAN AND INCOME TAX
It is said that Murry never believed that the changes in welfare policies of the late 1990s went far enough, and the fact that the woes of the welfare state continued, only confirmed his anxiety. The remedies offered to those woes in his latest book, has always been seen not just as economic but moral and cultural in the broadest sense.
However, according to Commentary Magazine, even on its own terms, it must be said that "Murray’s plan fails to solve the pivotal problem that has beset all previous efforts to create a negative income tax." Due to the way its payments are calculated, such a tax can either "provide adequate help to the needy or reinforce work and families"; not both simultaneously, at least not while keeping government spending under control.
In the examples provided by Murray, anyone crossing the entry income of $25,000 would already lose about 60% of each additional dollar earned; only at income of $50,000 does the loss drop to 40% (approximately the current marginal tax rate at that income level). Increasing the initial benefit to help single parents would only worsen the situation. Either the annual check would have to be phased down at an even faster rate, which would "create a discouragingly high tax burden for lower-middle-class recipients, or larger sums would have to go to a much bigger group of people, which would rapidly multiply the program’s total costs."
Remarkably, Murray proposes a number of ingenious explanations as to why these problems in reality can be conquered. He also opposes possible objections to the plan’s purported effect on a person’s incentive to work. It is said that 'In Our Hands' is a "powerful 'thought experiment,' designed to propel discussion of the welfare state's problems past those existing habits of mind that have obstructed all efforts to seriously consider the immense fiscal and social challenge that lies ahead."
GDP FORECAST
The Atlantic describes Murray's book as "a bold and provocative piece of work that deserves to be widely read and debated. It is hugely thought-provoking and hugely challenging to the intellectually complacent modes of discussion that prevail in modern politics." The Atlantic says it's unfortunate that Murray is not claiming that his plan will take effect right away. It is argued that "using Murray's numbers, switching immediately and thoroughly from the present system of benefits to his plan would leave a deficit of $355 billion a year—which, at 3% of GDP, is a very large sum." Murray is quoted as saying, "I will not bother to consider ways of closing that gap through increased taxation or additional budget cuts, because the gap will disappear on its own in a few years."
The Atlantic claims that Murray asks readers to believe that his plan is not just affordable but fiscally compelling. According to them, it is neither. "Unfortunately, says The Atlantic, "implementing this principle is a much harder thing than Murray allows—and his plan to do it all at one stroke cannot work."
Murray claims that the plan does not require much in the way of bureaucratic apparatus. The nuts and bolts of the plan include: "universal passport, a bank account, reimbursement schedule, eligibility, changes in the size of the grant tax revenues and the programs to be eliminated."
The cost of the plan in 2002: "the projected gross cost of the Plan if it had been implemented in 2002 at $2.023 trillion, overstating its cost by about $70 billion. In all, the expenditures on programs to be replaced amounted to $1.385 trillion in 2002, compared to the Plan’s
residual funding requirement of $1.740 trillion. In other words, as of 2002, the Plan could have been implemented with a $355 billion shortfall."
Making up the shortfall: "By 2020, the Plan would cost $549 billion less than a continuation of the current system—again, projecting no increase whatsoever in the percentage of people making $50,000 or more." This statement does not take transition costs into account—but, on the other hand, "a system that promises to cost half a trillion dollars less than the current system per year by 2020 leaves a lot of wiggle room for dealing with transition costs."
OVERHAUL
"With new material to reflect the policy changes of the past decade, notably the Affordable Care Act, Charles Murray suggests that there is no better moment for citizens to consider an overhaul of the current welfare state." It is time, he proposes, to put the future of all Americans back “in our hands.”
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, a summary of "In Our Hands" reveals that Charles Murray's book is described as a bold and provocative piece of work that deserves to be widely read and debated. It is hugely thought-provoking and hugely challenging to the intellectually complacent modes of discussion that prevail in modern politics. His main proposal is to replace all safety-net programs with a flat $10,000 annual grant to every American aged 21 years and older of which $3,000 must be spent on health insurance. The projected gross cost of the Plan if it had been implemented in 2002 was $2.023 trillion, overstating its cost by about $70 billion; by 2020, the Plan would cost $549 billion less than a continuation of the current system.
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