At the debate, Andrew Yang talked up his UBI proposal with a value added tax as a way to pay for it. What he tried to avoid is the hard truth of WHY libertarians like Yang actually want it: it’ll lower his tax bill by eviscerating the existing, already inadequate social safety net.

Sales taxes like VAT disproportionately burden working class and poorer people because they don’t have the disposable income that capitalists like Yang have. Eliminate the tax burden of funding existing public assistance, unemployment, and other components of the social safety net and millionaire capitalists like Yang are due for a nice, fat tax break.

Yang likes to present himself as a “Valley entrepreneur,” but he’s actually a venture capitalist, and like all capitalists he seeks to have his investment income taxed as cap gains, and not income – because it means he’ll pay far, far less as a percentage of income, than the majority of people earning taxed wages.

Yang’s UBI is not progressive. It’s a tax cut for the already wealthy capitalist class, pure and simple.