'So many' is a very imprecise 'lazy' number, so 'm not worried.

And no, it's not a 'big new idea'.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2...me/375600/

Quote:

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The idea isn’t new. As Frum notes, Friederich Hayek endorsed it. In 1962, the libertarian economist Milton Friedman advocated a minimum guaranteed income via a “negative income tax.” In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” Richard Nixon unsuccessfully tried to pass a version of Friedman’s plan a few years later , and his Democratic opponent in the 1972 presidential election, George McGovern, also suggested a guaranteed annual income.

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