The logical extension of that idea is that the same government that gives the money out (to people who allegedly need it) then turns around and does whatever it can to get the money right back. That's why lottery sales, for example, are highest in places where people live in poverty.
What the author of this article doesn't understand (among a lot of other things) is that poverty is usually the result of poor decision-making, not unfortunate circumstances. When Rodney King won a court settlement against the LAPD for nearly $4 million after he got his @ss beaten by a bunch of cops, he didn't suddenly become a rich man. He became a poor man with a lot of money ... which is why he ended up dead at the bottom of a swimming pool with alcohol and multiple narcotics in his system.
Good post.
All one has to do to understand what being “given” a “living” looks like, is to witness the rot produced in Democrat run inner cities - decades of nurturing dependency and generational welfare has crippled people, who now resort to destroying each other and their surroundings.
Friedman was not enthusiastic about a negative income tax, he just thought it was more effective than the then existing web of subsidies. We probably spend far north of $30k a year per person in poverty, but most of it goes to administrators and poverty pimps.