Comedian Joe Rogan says he is in favor of government-backed social programs like universal basic income and free education if tax dollars are spent efficiently and the government actually does its job.
Rogan said on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in June 2024 that he has always believed the government should provide free education, fix infrastructure, and offer universal basic income. The problem, he added, is that when the government gets involved, it rarely does the job efficiently and instead wastes money.
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“I’ve always, I’ve said, hey, maybe we should look into universal basic income,” Rogan said. “Maybe we should look into universal healthcare, we should fix the roads and we should fix intercities, if I thought my tax dollars were being used very appropriately in that way, I’d be 100% in favor of all that stuff.”
Government Employees Become ‘More Wealthy’
These social programs could work if private companies ran them because the free market rewards efficiency, Rogan said. When the government gets involved, red tape derails important projects and wastes money instead of fixing the problem, he added.
“When you get the government involved, all it does is make the government employees more wealthy,” Rogan said. “It makes the government larger and it makes them protect that industry.”
Rogan pointed to California’s homelessness problem as an example. He said that despite tons of government employees working on it, nothing ever got solved. But when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited San Francisco in 2023 and the city was forced to act, the homeless vanished almost overnight, Rogan said.
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“The only thing that I saw that was effective at all in stopping the tents and the homeless situation was when Xi Jinping visited San Francisco, they f*****g cleaned it up like that,” he said. “Like you could have done this the whole time.”
‘Most Incompetent Form of Business’
Rogan has long been a critic of government inefficiency. In July, he said on his podcast that inefficiency has become “standard” in government. If people did in a private company what they do in government, they’d go to jail for “fraud,” he said.
“Government is the grossest, most incompetent form of business,” Rogan said. “It’s a complete total monopoly.”
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This article Joe Rogan Says He’d Be ‘100% In Favor’ Of Free Education, Universal Income If He Thought His Tax Dollars Are Used ‘Very Appropriately’ originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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