I remember when George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, promised that if elected, he would send each citizen a check each year for $1,000. In today’s dollars, that would be nearly $8,000—hardly a small sum. For high-income recipients, most of that $1,000 would have gone right back to the U.S. Treasury when they paid income taxes. But for those with little or no income, the Mc...