> No. The welfare system is incredibly expensive to operate! I mean, in terms of the administrative overhead, the armies of bureaucrats, etc. Scrap all that, ma

> No. The welfare system is incredibly expensive to operate! I mean, in terms of the administrative overhead, the armies of bureaucrats, etc. Scrap all that, make a simple, unconditional payment - nothing to administer, no fraud to investigate, and it becomes very affordable - without raising taxes either. That's laughably naïve. I live in San Francisco. I have experience interacting with more than my fair share of homeless people. So let me ask you this: what happens when a person deliberately decides to be homeless? Do you just let him suffer on the streets? Or do you offer him shelter and food? The point is: you will still need the welfare services. Things like Child Protective Services, emergency rooms, homeless shelters, etc. etc. So all that UBI does is add an additional $20K/year of taxes on top of what we already pay. People in this country are opposed to universal health insurance, despite the fact that the beneficiaries actually pay into it. What makes you think that they will agree to just cutting $1.5K checks every month to every person? And then: what happens to the immigrants? People will come streaming across the border in droves when word spreads that they can get 1000s of dollars per year for nothing in America! We can't even control the border now; imagine what'll happen then.