That's a pretty unfair straw man. One of the most oft-cited "points" of BI is the savings related to cutting tax breaks and social programs. I'm not well-versed

That's a pretty unfair straw man. One of the most oft-cited "points" of BI is the savings related to cutting tax breaks and social programs. I'm not well-versed with the numbers, but I've heard these are pretty high. In addition, "higher taxes for those with above-middle-class incomes" to balance out the expenditure is an almost universally quoted corollary of BI. Citing the cost of BI without the obviously necessary offsets isn't constructive.