I have always liked Friedman's negative income tax proposal for exactly this reason.
From the right: F.A. Hayek, another right-leaning Nobel-winning economist, also supported a universal minimum income (not a negative income tax, but similar, of course. He also added a caveat that he thought it should be implemented IFF it was implemented everywhere).
I like the idea because it doesn't involve eliminating market economies. It's kind of like food stamps, but for a broader array of things: You can competitively purchase basic goods and services, which generally drives down costs and drives up quality.
From the left: One big concern with cash transfers is that some goods are complicated for consumers to understand (healthcare, for example). So, if you are left-leaning, maybe you can support a universal minimum income because the government could have a big role to play in, say, acting as a neutral agent and creating web portals and apps that efficiently disseminate excellent and easy-to-understand information about the types of healthcare plans available for purchase.
Not really. The problem with health care is that it works if it's socialized, and it doesn't if it's private, as shown by about all the entire developed world. And Saudi Arabia. No way to patch it to make it palatable to the right wing, but that shouldn't be a problem. There wasn't any way to make the USSR being a failure palatable to the left, either.
To clarify, health care is not a consumer product, it's a particular kind of insurance. It doesn't make sense to bring consumer choice into it. [1]
> if you are left-leaning, maybe you can support a universal minimum income
What are you talking about? Universal minimum income is a socialist proposal. It has been for a fairly long time. I suppose they'll be glad to see the libertarians also agree that it could work, but it's not like Hayek alone invented it.
Also, health care doesn't have to be insurance. With proper regulation, it could be competitively delivered (e.g. LASIK). However, as many leftists note, the consumer-knowledge problem comes into play at this point. That's what I was referring to.
Only in some watered down sense of the word socialist. Neither "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" nor "to each according to his contribution" are compatible with a basically capitalist society with private ownership of the means of production that happens to have a minor redistributive element layered on top of it. In fact, I suspect a Marxist analysis of such a programme would conclude that it was simply a mechanism for the capitalist class to stifle the development of class consciousness among the proletariat.
I don't really believe that, but I can't think of any other good arguments against it.
The other argument is that all taxation is theft, and everyone fully earned whatever money he earns in the free economy independent of everything else.
Even if you believed this, basic income seems to be closer to this ideal than the current welfare/subsidy system. I'd be happier paying slightly more in taxes for things which don't create perverse incentives for anyone, but in reality, I think basic income (and a sane defense budget) would be a tax cut, at least after a transition period.
I also support basic income FWIW.
I'm not a believer in the Marxist doctrine of a false consciousness, so when I say "conditioned" I don't mean "by the faceless cabal"; as the child of an anthropologist, I've long understood that culture is entirely sufficient as an explanation.