Dr. Ray Griffin:

As for the Deputy's comment on housing, what he is describing is not a cliff edge; it is a trapdoor. You walk over and you are gone before you know it. It speaks of a system where you need your wits about you and too much so. In terms of a universal basic income, a lot of people are attracted to it because they feel they can accomplish their politics, be they right or left. They believe they can end the welfare state and turn it into a liquid, capital, frictionless society and economy or that what they had hoped to provide through the welfare state, can be accomplished with a universal basic income. In general, the absolutist version of it philosophically changes what money does in society. There are certain things that are tournaments, like housing. There is a fixed number of houses, whereby there are only a few houses on Sorrento Terrace and money is all-competing for those. There are other things that are commodities that can be bought. It rebalances those relationships and that has not been thought through properly by those who advocate for it. A more universal system is what the witnesses here are advocating for, as well as dismantling the complexity of means-testing and, line by line, taking a braver approach to introducing more universal items rather than UBI for all.