RUSH: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is implementing a pilot program that’s become a huge fad in liberal circles. The program will hand out $1,000 — $1,000 checks — to selected Chicago recipients every month, with no strings attached.

The handout is called “Universal Basic Income.” UBI. It’s supposed to “break the cycle of poverty.”

Chicago will pay for the new welfare handouts with “city funds.” In other words, UBI money is coming from unsuspecting taxpayers. Now, according to news reports, cash will also come from “philanthropic dollars.” Translation: Chicago’s UBI is getting in on the liberal nonprofit gravy train: Big money from the big far-left activist organizations.

Now, this scam — uh, sorry,  social welfare experiment — has been tried before. In January 2017, Finland adopted a UBI program. But after two years of not “breaking the cycle of poverty,” it was shut down. Finland admitted that it failed.

And that’s what Chicago’s harebrained UBI plan is destined to do. It’ll also fail, because socialism never works.

No matter what you call it, no matter how you disguise it, no matter how you try it, it blows up on you!