Milton Friedman argued for it, I think. To replace all of the existing programs with just a UBI.
The problem is that it won't replace anything, they will argue for these programs on top of UBI.
Not exactly. Friedman wrote a position paper arguing the economics of it but, if you dig into the meat of it (versus just how blogs spin it), he really did call out the flaws in the overall idea.
What's very interesting, is this is the result the 'new Communists' in the early to mid-20th century were pushing for ('real Communism' for those who always argue it never has been tried).
A universal basic income was the foundation and the start of what they thought would eliminate classes. People often talk about the Cloward/Piven strategy but they don't really read up on what their end means was. The strategy was to over-burden the system, their solution was basically Communism under the guise of a Universal Basic Income.
Some Conservatives who are falling into the trap of arguing for it (which is where the 'half' knowledge of Friedman's paper on it lays) is that they think it will eliminate all social welfare programs- missing that it actually creates one universal welfare program that all people are a member of and universally dependent on the government to provide.
And we get to the crux of Friedman's paper and why overall, with all the 'merit' arguments he presented, the basic flaw is that it attacks the very nature of what currency is. No longer is it a representation of the value of work, but instead, currency becomes an entitlement in of itself, for the sake of existence.