You're forgetting that the citizens of the US are people, not robots. When everyone gets the same treatment, you get a feeling of unity and you don't divide society into "leeches" and "providers" based on who gets UBI and who doesn't. The UBI becomes part of what it means to be American.
Furthermore, you can solve the same problem just by increasing taxes on the rich. If you send every rich person $12k, but also tax them $12k more per year, the money spent/saved is exactly the same as not sending it to them in the first place. So this statement you made is false:
> This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget.
Furthermore, you can solve the same problem just by increasing taxes on the rich. If you send every rich person $12k, but also tax them $12k more per year, the money spent/saved is exactly the same as not sending it to them in the first place. So this statement you made is false:
> This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget.