[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.