Let’s cut the crap and quit pretending everyone is special. When everyone is subsidized no one is subsidized. So why have hundreds of categories to determine who gets grants, loans, loan guarantees and/or special tax breaks? The polite answer: it's a clunky attempt to target the truly needy. The rude answer: it's to keep most people from bothering so the special interests can get an unfair share. Both answers are partially correct.
We could just divide up the social welfare budget by the adult citizen population and give everyone the same amount. We could then send a couple hundred thousand well-educated bureaucrats back into the private sector to expand the tax base. Or we could repurpose them to do something useful, like shortening the lines at the Post Office, inspecting the food from small farms and slaughterhouses, explaining regulations to the regulated, actually reading the emergency spill plans from oil companies, picking up the phone at the IRS on the first ring.
Let us collect a trillion or two dollars with a simple tax system and divide up the largesse to everyone. For net taxpayers, the check from the government is really a tax rebate in disguise. For the poor the check is effectively a welfare check except you don't have to stay unemployed, single, or broke to qualify.
The idea is not new. Deep thinkers on both the Left and Right have made similar proposals, under such wonkish names as “citizen's dividend” and “basic income guarantee.” They have made limited progress to date. The economics are not obvious; many special interests stand to lose from such a simple idea. Finally, these economic geniuses are not the best marketers. Basic income guarantee? What's that? Let's call it what the people are already looking for: free money from the government.
