Like many other Brunonians, I decided to spend my Monday night this week in the Salomon Center, listening to the former 2020 presidential candidate offer his thoughts on the current state of our democracy. Andrew Yang ’96 came out ten minutes early to shake hands, his speech had the audience erupting in laughter and — in the end — he passionately described why he felt a calling to run for President of the United States, citing beliefs that poverty is unavoidable. All the while, he held the crowd in the palm of his hand. While Yang has succeeded in emanating Generation Z charisma, he has failed to cultivate a realistic political platform to back up the viral persona.
During the 2020 campaign season, Yang ran primarily on his vision for Universal Basic Income, which would provide every U.S. adult with a $1,000-a-month stipend. During this week’s speech hosted by the Brown Political Union, Yang simplified the issue, stating that our GDP, which currently sits at $29 trillion, is more than enough to provide this stimulus to the over 258 million people who would theoretically receive it.
What Yang failed to mention when he was going on his diatribe about a new “human-centered economy,” is that the American national debt has climbed to a staggering $36 trillion, far outpacing our GDP. As it stands, the federal government has spent over $1.83 trillion more than it has collected in the previous fiscal year.
This is where I take issue with members of the Yang Gang. In his talk, Yang referred to himself as a “numbers guy,” and if we hold that to be true then it is nothing short of disingenuous to completely remove our insurmountable debt from the equation. The Social Security Administration estimates that, by 2033, Social Security will become insolvent as our population grows older, leaving our economy with more retirees and fewer workers. This leaves the one form of universal income that we do have in a precarious spot as benefits for the country’s most vulnerable population are cut. The Social Security Administration may then be forced to cut benefits for all current retirees, leaving 20-something-year-olds like us with much less financial stability than our grandparents had.
As mandatory spending increases, we are left with less money for the issues we care about. A policy such as UBI — as fanciful as it is — would only make this worse. Do you want to see an increase in funding for science and technology research, environmental protections or maybe education? This all falls under discretionary spending which Congress can cut at will, and they will have to if we continue to overextend ourselves without first addressing the paramount issue of our unbalanced budget.
Yang stated at the event that the motivation behind his UBI crusade is, in part, the ever-growing threat that AI poses to the job market. I fully agree that innovations in AI will have devastating effects on the American middle and lower classes, but if we as a country are to provide the financial assistance necessary to accommodate this inevitability, we must first take serious steps towards resolving our national debt. Anything less is a disservice to the American people, and, more specifically, to younger generations such as ours.
I understand the charm. I get the appeal of a grandiose reconsideration of American politics. But when we let ourselves so easily fall into the palm of buzz word romancers such as Andrew Yang, we delay the arrival of a feasible new vision of our country. We must reserve our fervor for politicians who offer realistic platforms of national policy, like Wes Moore and Pete Buttigieg, who don’t dilute their potential with empty promises like UBI.
Christian Davis ’27 can be reached at christian_davis @brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
