If I remember “Milton Friedman” comments on this correctly. It was to replace all forms of federally funded welfare including the cost of maintaining the legions of bureaucrats & social workers who administer it. It would be a unit of the treasury that mails out the check. What the recipient does with it is his/her business. Friedman claimed it would be cheaper & less socially harmful.
Of course he was right.
The Dems were brilliant when they put the Ag Dept in charge of food stamps...
The theory is fine but no politician could help tuning it with some “special cases” that would multiply year by year