"I saw on a John Stossel special about getting rid of the department dealing with welfare (whatever that's called) and he said something to the effect that those who receive a check only get a few hundred dollars per month, but if they got rid of the department and the employees and the bureaucracy, the savings would allow the Federal government to just write a check to each individual for something like 20 to 40 thousand dollars per year and end their poverty."
-- Exactly. Libertarians and many conservatives have known this for years, but never speak up. I remember Ann Coulter was on Fox News a year ago and was talking about public housing. She stunned her liberal opponent by suggesting that we're better off just giving them ownership of the property! The Lib was dumbfounded, unable to comprehend the fundamental concept of property rights.
This is a slippery slope. It does not address the core issue - that people use public housing because they are unable to make a decent wage because they - either directly or indirectly throug the businesses that would employ them - are heavily overtaxed. The band-aid solution of just giving them the housing is a low-cost implementation of a Marxist solution.
Now, I know neither you nor Ann Coulter was actually suggesting this, but ut us the sort of thing that can get taken out of control.