If you are analyzing the impact of the TSA on basic needs in our current economy, it's very positive, providing jobs and causing minor distributed irritation that doesn't really count as a negative impact on basic needs.

(You can argue that it would be better to give the money away without requiring the jobs, but that ain't the world we have)

Good point, I'll concede that one.

I think there is some level of malicious intent implied on the grandparent that I don't think you can attribute to TSA policy makers though.

Even more relevant to the question: it introduces complexity that harms citizen's basic needs by putting in place knowledge inequities. You can make the tax code as complicated as you want, and the hyper wealthy will still be able to pay for people to understand it and squeeze out every drop of value because the absolute amount of money in play makes it feasible. Spending $200k to "save" $1million is a good deal. That's maybe a couple full time employees. If you wanted to save $100 instead, throwing $20 at is isn't gonna get you anything.

So all those people who can't "subcontract" their way through the complexity with specialists are left to their own devices. And they don't have the time or expertise to navigate it themselves. So the tests and checks and processes and discoverability weeds out deserving people constantly just in the hopes of preventing some "undeservings" from having access.

It'd be like writing an algorithm and every branch of logic you put in you have to do a random roll and throw an exception some percentage of the time. Each new branch compounding to filter more and more while also costing more and more to facilitate. But that execution reality is ignored so that the pure logic can be focused on in a vacuum.

It's all like the opposite of Blackstone's ratio regarding crime that "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". Social programs are designed such that they would often rather let ten innocent people suffer than one guilty person benefit.

Very true.

I wonder how many people would be out of work if the US opted for universal programs (UBI, universal healthcare, guaranteed parental leave, subsidized childcare etc.) and in the process gutted much of the bureaucracy required to maintain the current systems.

My gut says thousands, but probably more right?

Universal healthcare would be a fantastic move for the US.

I don't think the US spends money on making healthcare worse for people though. (Unless you want to argue that universal healthcare would be cheaper than the current standard and thus by way of opportunity cost the US is spending on worsening the healthcare of it's citizens)