I don’t think anyone is saying that the savings in bureaucracy are so great that UBI wouldn’t be a net cost, but that the cost may be less than one would expect

I don’t think anyone is saying that the savings in bureaucracy are so great that UBI wouldn’t be a net cost, but that the cost may be less than one would expect. Also having gotten clued into modern monetary theory from The Deficit Myth lately I’ve come to question all the hand-wringing about cost. If the government can just print however much money it costs to pay out a UBI, then it’s more about controlling inflation with a significant increase in deficit spending, not about if a (monetarily independent) state can “afford” it. Taxes may be a part of that to drain money from the general supply and incentivize work, but it’s not necessary to pay for it.