Except the money for unemployment is confiscated from working people's paychecks, so it's a net wash on the economy at best, less the sizable bureaucratic overhead.
But if you take that $100 from me and give it to an unemployed person, they are going to spend 100% of that, guaranteed.
Moreover, I'm not following you on the "less the sizable bureaucratic overhead" comment. You make it seem as if the gov't takes $100 from me, burns $10 in the White House Furnace, and gives $90 to the unemployed person.
On the contrary, every dollar of "bureaucratic overhead" is income for somebody -- a government contractor, supplier or employee. I've never understood why people act like the money the government spends just vanishes from the economy. Yes, a small, small fraction of it goes overseas. But it's so small it cannot be described as "sizable."
Nonsense. That's great that you'd save the $100, but even if you do that it still has economic utility, presuming you're putting it into a bank account. It then gets lent out to businesses or reinvested into the economy. The bank isn't sitting on a giant pile of money.
I thought banks were sitting on giant piles of money (thanks to the Fed), hence the low interest rates?
Short version: Money spent for unproductive reasons doesn't add to net wealth.
Or here's a better scheme. How good do you want the economy to be this year? GDP of $100 trillion? Great, I can make that happen. Have the government print a $100 trillion bill and give it to me. (Or hand-written is fine.) I'll use it to buy a $100 trillion candy bar from my friend over there, then he'll burn it. Boom, $100+ trillion GDP, zero inflation, recession over. We'll all buy yachts!
The point is that moving money around does not inherently create prosperity. It can help if the act causes resources to be used more efficiently, but figuring out how to do that is incredibly hard. Politicians (or anyone really) trying to do it at a national level are like monkeys at the controls of a nuclear reactor. They're vastly out of their collective league. Theoretically they could make the situation better, but don't count on it.
Giving money to people in unemployment is probably 90% of the way to giving money right to small business. Which in turn will pay their employees.
There seems to be very little reason not to do it except for the two psychological effects we alluded to earlier:
1) My paycheck is now lower by .2%... I'm going to spend less.
2) Unemployment isn't so bad. I can slack off, because I wouldn't mind a 99 week vacation. (or other similar sentiments).
I'm not sure either is happening in measurable numbers to offset the gain had by the extra money pumped into the economy.
Future taxes will likely pay for it in some form, but not current ones, which is one reason it has a stimulative effect. It's also what most economists recommend in many parts of the political spectrum (countercyclic fiscal policy).
To be opposed to redistribution despite the obvious fact that it would create utility, one has to bring in additional concepts. For example, one might take some sort of ethical stand on redistribution being Pareto-inefficient. Or one might argue that the additional growth from inequality will eventually outweigh the disutility of respecting wealth inequality. (Either of these might not apply during depressed economic periods.)