One consequence is that someone with specific life circumstances preventing her from leaving her job will now be able to do that to pursue something that might

One consequence is that someone with specific life circumstances preventing her from leaving her job will now be able to do that to pursue something that might be better. Another consequence, and one that is unintended but virtually unpreventable for a government, is that someone with an idea he is less sure of and which is less likely to succeed will be pushed in the direction of quitting his job and pursuing his unproductive idea. My thought is that when a government does something like this, it pushes everyone further in the direction of risk, similar to when the US Government promised to back the banks in the case of impending failure. And like the banking situation, while it is possible that a lot of the risky decisions will pay off quite handsomely, a lot of them will end poorly, possibly enough to swamp the ones that paid off well. In the aggregate this could mean a lot of otherwise productive people working on unproductive projects, leaving less productive people doing the stable, productive work. That's why I don't think the government is the best tool to encourage or provide incentives for people to quit their jobs and work on startups. The government can't filter well enough to cause more of the good consequence and less of the bad.