 In an interview with Crystal Ball on the Hill TV, Bernie Sanders was asked about UBI being a potential solution to an increase in the rise of automation. And his answer didn't go over too well with one of Universal Basic Income's biggest champions, Andrew Yang. So, we'll hear what Bernie Sanders had to say and then I will tell you Andrew Yang's response. I believe in a jobs guarantee. There are an enormous amount of work, there is an enormous amount of work that has to be done all the way from childcare to healthcare to education to rebuilding our infrastructure to combating climate change to dealing with our growing elderly population, enormous number of jobs out there. And I believe under a Sanders administration what we would do is create those jobs and as people lose their jobs they will have the other jobs available, but bottom line is we cannot allow robotics, technology, artificial intelligence to simply throw people out on the street. Technology has got to benefit all of us, not just the heads of large corporations. Why is a federal jobs guarantee better than a Universal Basic Income? I will tell you why. A simple reason, I think most people want to work, they want to be a productive member of society. I think it's a very deeply ingrained feeling that people have. They don't want to sit on the side. Yes, of course, getting a guaranteed income is better than having nothing and sleeping out on the street, that's for sure. But I think people want to be part of, you know, part of our humanity to be truthful and how we feel good about ourselves is when we are productive members of our society, we're contributing something. And I think people feel that very strongly and I think there is more than enough work to be done in so many areas and our job is to say if you are able to work we have a job for you because the truth is we have so much work to do to rebuild this country in so many ways. Now, here's what Andrew Yang had to say about that. He tweeted, Bernie ignores the facts that money in our hands would one, create hundreds of thousands of local jobs and two, recognize and reward the nurturing work being done in our homes and communities every day. He also assumes that everyone wants to work for the government, which isn't true. He added, it's very strange. He seemed open and warm to the idea of a universal basic income not too long ago. Now he seems irritated every time it comes up. So my initial reaction was that this is kind of an overreaction from Andrew Yang because I don't really feel like what Bernie Sanders had to say there was that problematic. Like it didn't seem like he was trying to attack UBI. And furthermore, like it didn't seem like Bernie Sanders was even irritated there. So I'm not sure why Andrew Yang was so angry with what Bernie Sanders had to say. And I also don't believe that Bernie Sanders is ignoring how beneficial it would be to increase purchasing power of Americans, because Bernie Sanders, he talks about this all the time. And when Bernie Sanders says that people want to work, he's not necessarily saying that they want to work exclusively for the federal government. But what he's saying is that people enjoy working. They like doing things. I mean, when I was on unemployment, when I lost my job, I was bored. Like within a month, I felt desperate. Like it was nice to get a little bit of a break. But I mean, I was ready to go back to work because I wanted to do something, right? People genuinely want to work. And one thing that I think that Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders is missing here is that both a federal jobs guarantee and UBI, these are not mutually exclusive things like you actually can't have both. And I support both simultaneously to a degree. No, I will say that when it comes to Andrew Yang's argument for UBI, when he does say that, you know, UBI would reward the nurturing work of mothers or fathers who stay at home and caretakers and whatnot. I do think that that actually is a really persuasive way to sell UBI. However, it seemed really out of character for him to kind of go after Bernie here. But here's the thing. I do believe that Andrew Yang, to a degree, is kind of overselling UBI because look, don't get me wrong, a thousand dollars per month would be phenomenal for a lot of families. But do you honestly believe that that's an end all be all? Like if we just give every single American a thousand dollars per month or in the case of Andrew Yang, you know, if you're already getting food stamps or welfare, you have to choose between that and one thousand dollars per month. If we just give everyone one thousand dollars per month, is that honestly going to solve all of the country's problems? No. Now, to be fair, Andrew Yang doesn't actually suggest that this is the case. However, he doesn't talk about the other policy proposals that he has. He kind of just remains committed to this idea that universal basic income will solve so many problems when in actuality, it's not going to solve that many problems. Again, it would be great, but it's not the end all be all. What do you honestly believe would be more beneficial? Giving every single person one thousand dollars per month, which adds up to twelve thousand per year or guaranteeing everyone a job that pays seventy eighty thousand per year and provides them with union benefits, stability and what not. I mean, the answer is obvious. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that if you support a federal jobs guarantee that you can't be in favor of UBI. I actually do support a UBI that supplements our existing social safety net because if you create this UBI that can one day replace our current social safety net, we're not making ourselves any better off. So you don't want UBI to be implemented in a way where it can be used as a Trojan horse. Now, when I brought Andrew Yang on my program, I asked him about this and he told me and I'm paraphrasing, you know, I wouldn't want social safety net programs to be cut. He basically made it seem like I don't want UBI to be a Trojan horse to gut our social safety net. However, when he went on Rave Dubin show, he said basically the opposite that, you know, UBI could potentially act as a replacement to welfare programs one day. I've talked to people who are on various welfare programs and they love the idea of getting a thousand dollars on conditional because they dislike the case manager, the reporting requirements, everything else. And so you can reduce the enrollments in our existing programs significantly. And so and it brings down the headline cost very quickly because if someone's already getting seven hundred dollars in benefits, then the cost is three hundred dollars instead of a thousand. And even if he has adjusted his UBI program, so individuals on social security don't have to choose between UBI and their social security benefits that they paid into, still, if you are making somebody choose between welfare and UBI, then that's not truly universal because somebody who is on food stamps and is poor, they're not technically getting, you know, that extra thousand dollars per month. They're having to choose where somebody who makes a hundred thousand dollars per year and isn't on welfare, they don't have to choose. So, you know, someone who's better off, they just get an extra thousand dollars, you know, no questions asked, whereas someone who's poor does not get that, you know, so what's more important and what Bernie Sanders communicates more so than Andrew Yang is that we need to change the system. UBI alone isn't going to fix the economy. And I don't necessarily think that Andrew Yang thinks that that's true as well. But what do you think is more important changing the entire system, restructuring our economy or giving everyone a thousand dollars within our existing system and just saying, all right, that's good. I mean, that's not a very sufficient long term solution. And look, again, I think that they're both wrong in the sense that you don't have to choose between UBI and a federal jobs guarantee. You can technically have both of them. You can have your cake and eat it too. But if you are going to choose between one or the other, which is the implication here that both of them believe, then obviously you want something that will increase purchasing power more. And that's going to be a federal jobs guarantee. Like $12,000 a year isn't going to be enough for people to survive. Of course, that's not going to be enough. So, you know, you need to make sure that people are guaranteed a good paying job where they can have union membership. So to just say, you know what, UBI is better than a federal jobs guarantee. I think you're kind of missing the force for the trees. And you can also argue that maybe Bernie Sanders is being a little bit too dismissive of UBI here. But if I had to choose, which it's, you know, it's kind of a false choice, a false dichotomy here, I would still say that the federal jobs guarantee long term is more important. But that's not to say that UBI wouldn't help. I just don't really get why Andrew Yang is criticizing Bernie Sanders here. There are genuine good faith critiques of UBI and Bernie Sanders. He didn't seem irritated here. So I just don't really understand this here. You can be in favor of both. If I were Andrew Yang, I'd say, all right, you know what? I'm going to outflank Bernie from his left. I'm going to propose a federal jobs guarantee and UBI that isn't a replacement for our social safety net. It supplements our existing social safety net. But I mean, I don't know. Andrew Yang, he's a good person, right? He is a smart guy. I think he's a genuine person. This seemed out of character for him to go after Bernie there because Bernie Sanders really, I mean, if he criticized UBI, it was a tepid criticism at best. Now, if Andrew Yang were to say, look, Bernie, if you support a federal jobs guarantee, that's fine. But if you're not also supporting UBI, here's why you're wrong. That would make more sense. But for him to just make it seem as if, oh, well, you're wrong. If you don't support UBI in lieu of a federal jobs guarantee, just long term and looking at the bigger picture, that doesn't make sense. A federal jobs guarantee would do more for people than $12,000 a year. Bigger picture, fixing the entire economy is more important than giving people, you know, $1,000 per month and not changing the system. The goal, number one priority is to change the system. Bernie wants to do that. Andrew Yang wants to make some tweaks around the edges, which is why I support Bernie Sanders over Andrew Yang.