Sure. But that challenge smells of whataboutism.

And it's also looking at the finger rather than where it's pointing. I could just as easily have picked on health care, for example, or housing assistance programs. But I'm not trying to write a book, here.

I think the more interesting phenomenon here is that seeing the negative consequences of a largely fiscally conservative cause is bringing fiscal conservative thought leaders to the point of putting their support behind a traditionally socialist cause.

The above posters argument is very simple. These program's impact on inefficiency and rent seeking are négligeable. Their benefits aren't.

If so, then I guess we're arguing over a straw man? Because that argument would be a great response to a suggestion that we just end welfare, but it doesn't really make much sense as a response to a comment about the idea of massively expanding it by replacing it with universal basic income.

ubi would not change the dynamics. the same trivial rent-seeking would happen, but it’s still irrelevant if what you really care about is rent-seeking as economic drag/inefficiency, not ideological concerns.

UBI gives people control over their own money. Food stamps for example gives poor people a disproportionally large food budget which studies has shown makes them fat. People who are equally poor but aren't on food stamps are healthier than those who get it, even though their purchasing power increased.

So only reason to give them food stamps instead of just giving them money is to feed money into grocery stores and to create government bureaucracy jobs. If you scrapped the entire program and just gave people money poor people would be healthier, the government would be leaner and the poorer would have more money to spend on stuff they need.