What's funny is that I could see Universal Basic Income as being preferred to our current welfare system, especially amongst the more libertarian conservatives.
Perhaps, but there are a lot of questions that would need to be answered.
1. It would be far more equitable--every adult citizen would qualify regardless of income. Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos would get their checks just like anyone else.
I would be a little curious how much of a poor person's income would be consumed by inflation in inelastic markets if we did this. Particularly renters.
2. All other income-based social assistance programs would disappear--no more food stamps, temporary assistance, housing subsidies etc. Medicaid would be replaced with a universal healthcare system available to everyone, but people would still be expected to pay part of their bills since they are getting free money.
I question whether or not this would actually happen. Somehow, I imagine we end up with UBI and additional anti-poverty programs (the government doesn't like to shrink).
3. Much more personal responsibility than the current welfare system. If you spend your money poorly and don't have food to eat, tough shit. Learn your lesson for next month's paycheck. The government isn't responsible for bailing you out if you're a dumbshit.
There are a couple of glaring problems with this:
1) Even currently, welfare is only minimally about helping single childless adults. You can get SNAP or some disability benefits if you are disabled. Mostly, this money goes to help families. What does that mean for UBI? In this context, are children considered adults for distribution purposes? You obviously can't give 2k/mo to a 4 year old, so does that money go to the parents? To a lockbox?
Or do you only start collecting at 18? If that's the case then it won't be long until we start seeing "won't you think of the children" argument as to why we need UBI and additional benefits for parents who don't work but decide to have 5 children (remember, most welfare today is ostensibly about children).
This is actually a pretty hard problem and doesn't go away with UBI. If you count children as adults and send their UBI to their parents you are incentivizing child bearing (even though one huge reason to have a UBI in the first place is that humans aren't as necessary and can't find productive work) and if you don't then you still have irresponsible parents having children and then your "don't have food to eat, tough shit" argument doesn't go far. The first time CBS runs a story about starving kids the TANF money is back on.
2) How do you price UBI? It costs more to life in California than it does in South Dakota. Do we price it based on how much it costs to live California or South Dakota? Or does it vary by region?
In general, libertarians aren't opposed to safety net programs (even Friedman proposed a negative income tax) but we need a lot more explanation and critical analysis of the concept. My biggest concern is that instead of streamlining and making the process cheaper, we end up with a UBI + TANF + SNAP + HUD + etc + etc. Like I said before, the government doesn't like to shrink.