People get carried away with the idea of handing "free money" out to poor people, without realizing that there is no such thing. All money has to come from somewhere.
If a government is handing out money, there are three options:
1) Money has been confiscated from other people.
2) Money has been printed.
3) Money has been borrowed.
That's it. Money always has to come from somewhere, and governments simply don't acquire any without some consequences.
I fear you are labouring under a misapprehension. The "free" in "free money" refers to the fact that it doesn't directly cost the recipient anything. Like "free healthcare". Nobody is claiming that the government can obtain the money for free.
Actually, the article points out that the government might actually save money by giving it away for free, rather than implementing all sorts of complicated restrictions and checks and hiring people to enforce those.
> I fear you are labouring under a misapprehension
Nah, I know what I'm talking about :)
It's important to point this stuff out because most people think that anything paid by the government is somehow "free", as if governments could use as much money as they please for all eternity. In reality, they can't, and the Western world is in the process of finding that out first-hand.
If a government is handing out money, there are three options:
That's it. Money always has to come from somewhere, and governments simply don't acquire any without some consequences.