@augustus paying people for children also occasionally results in dead and abused children that were only conceived for the check, and then not cared for. Just saw a video about such a child in the UK. There will be negative outcomes with any policy because we live on Earth and not paradise.

The thing to avoid is motivated reasoning.
>Germany closes nuclear reactors. Germany starts saying that it can cut customers off from the energy grid arbitrarily.
Q: do the anti-nuclear people realize that was a mistake?
A: no. Suddenly they are capable of discerning the unseen alternative, the opportunity cost. Germany's current energy troubles are surely worse than the unseen alternative of a nuclear accident, inevitable since "not even the Japanese could do it safely"
Q: are the anti-nuclear people capable of such high-level reasoning in any other case? Do they see the opportunity costs of the welfare state?
A: no, that is too hard for them