"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment be

"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program" - Roosevelt A Basic Income program is unrepealable after enough time(say 20 years) has passed. People are terrible at making decisions: They don't save money, they run up their credit cards, they don't invest. A BI program limits the damage that their bad decisions can cause. Even $800/month would wildly distort decision making. I don't think that a lot of people who've been receiving it their whole life are going to be in a position to function independently if you try to repeal it. There are going to be too many single mothers crying "How will I make my rent?" if you take it away. Even if they otherwise would've managed without it. A law that's a one-way ratchet requires extraordinary evidence before you even consider it. It doesn't matter if it has a positive expected value, or the models say it will probably work; the risk that it won't deliver on its promises is too high, and we'll be stuck with it forever.