[imtringued]

The bureaucracy exists to limit welfare spending though. If you have a fixed budget it is more efficient to only give it to those who truly need it even if it is self defeating over the long term. That is simply how politics works.

[dragonwriter]

> he bureaucracy exists to limit welfare spending though. If you have a fixed budget it is more efficient to only give it to those who truly need it even if it is self defeating over the long term.

If it is self-defeating, it is not more efficient. And we already have a bureaucracy whose functions include verifying income claims and adjusting net payments based on them in the income tax system, we don’t need a bunch of different bureaucracies doing that redundantly with slightly varied definitions and rules and paperwork that serve little practical purpose besides justifying additional bureaucracies and enforcing self-defeating funding cliffs.