you make a system that is impossible to abuse short of creating fictitious people - means testing is what allows the existing system to be abused.
Give me an impossible to abuse welfare system
Everyone over the age of 18 gets a check from the government for 1,000 dollars a month. The only qualification to get the money, is being 18 years old, being alive, residing in the united states and being a citizen or permanent resident of the united states.
Short of creating fictitious people, with fictitious identity documentation, its virtually impossible to cheat it.
No system in the world is going to stop people from doing stupid shit - you try the best you can, but at the end of the day, people have to choose to do the right thing.
I'd probably allow anyone who was not working overseas for longer than a year to continue to draw it, its really about your permanent residence and where it is - on the other hand the number of americans who work abroad is astonishingly small - so probably not enough to worry about.
Part of what a GMI would need to overcome is ensuring that we have an accurate tracking program - a death should trigger an semi-automated removal from the rolls - as in you need to present yourself.
No system is foolproof, and even the best one in the world is going to have upwards of 2-3% fraud - that said the social security administration historically has been VERY good about tracking them down, and remarkably successful at clawing overpayments back.
In the end, by eliminating means testing you close down a ton of venues for fraud.
I agree, and that’s why I would never say it was virtually impossible to cheat one.