Almost every form of government funding comes with strings attached. For example, when I do government contracting, I'm sure as hell not allowed to spend the money on booze and going to the movies; on the contrary, I have to account for every penny with quite a lot of stringent regulation. For the same reason that I shouldn't be given the "freedom to make mistakes and learn from them" with my contracting money, people receiving aid for basic needs also shouldn't be given the money without strings attached. That's an opinion obviously, but my reasoning for it is as follows: I hold the political/moral opinion that a welfare check should be a last resort, and that it should (in almost all cases) be more attractive to earn income than to receive public assistance.

I'm not suggesting by any means that people receiving government assistance should not go see a movie, or go to a pool, etc. They should; but they should do so with money that they earn on their own rather than money from their check. A lot of people in this thread are making the argument that it all ends up in the same pool, so why does it matter that revenue stream x is allocated to y? For the same reason that I can't go buy hookers with my NIH grant money: allocation of public funds matters. If this can be enforced on grants and contracts, it can be enforced on welfare as well. If they want to buy entertainment and frivolous things, they should absolutely have the freedom to do so... with their own discretionary income. That allows people to get the assistance they need for the things they need, while also providing an incentive to work for supplementary income that comes with more liberties.