Why are you special-casing the PFD? I could equally say "providing polling places, ballot counting, and all the other democratic infrastructure – which are now a political must-have – has required cutting public services such as the PFD", and it'd be just as true.
If the knock-on economic effects of the PFD are putting more money into the system than it's taking out, it's obviously worth keeping (even when money is tight, unless that's expected to be temporary and certain other conditions are met). If the PFD is valued directly, then it's also worth keeping, regardless of the economic effects. We don't kill the elderly once they retire, even though that policy is of greater cost to the economy than benefit.
The naïve "it costs money that could be spent on other things" claim can be used to criticise any policy. The real question isn't whether it's good or bad, because we know there are circumstances that it's good. The question is, under what circumstances is UBI bad?
UBI seems to work in theory, so I'm mighty suspicious that it seems to work universally in practice. ("Economic theory just doesn't work that well," I continue to insist.) But the only failure mode I've seen, anywhere, is "it costs money" (e.g. https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/news/universal-basic-in...). All other criticisms appear hypothetical, so I don't get why we pay them so much heed.
> Ballots are a political must have in the sense that they are required for the political system to function
No they're not. Many countries have unelected leadership, and their political systems function. Ballots (and the rest of the democratic infrastructure) are something that people want, because they see them as good to have.
> The PFD is a political must have in the sense that voters are now telling the government they would rather cut other services to keep it
The cuts described in your first link didn't happen, because of public pressure against the cuts.
But let's pretend the Alaskan electorate did demand cuts elsewhere, to maintain or increase the PFD. If the budget reduces, "people would prefer to cut something else" is a sign of a service being valued by the populace. How is that an argument against the service?
You're saying "this cost is bad because if we don't cut this cost, we have to cut other costs", but that's true for the other costs as well. The original claim was asymmetrical (that UBI programmes cost money for no benefit; i.e., that they're a waste of money). You can't use a symmetrical argument to support an asymmetrical claim.
If the knock-on economic effects of the PFD are putting more money into the system than it's taking out, it's obviously worth keeping (even when money is tight, unless that's expected to be temporary and certain other conditions are met). If the PFD is valued directly, then it's also worth keeping, regardless of the economic effects. We don't kill the elderly once they retire, even though that policy is of greater cost to the economy than benefit.
The naïve "it costs money that could be spent on other things" claim can be used to criticise any policy. The real question isn't whether it's good or bad, because we know there are circumstances that it's good. The question is, under what circumstances is UBI bad?
UBI seems to work in theory, so I'm mighty suspicious that it seems to work universally in practice. ("Economic theory just doesn't work that well," I continue to insist.) But the only failure mode I've seen, anywhere, is "it costs money" (e.g. https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/news/universal-basic-in...). All other criticisms appear hypothetical, so I don't get why we pay them so much heed.