There are quite a lot of benefits to giving cash directly. Generally people know what is best for them better than even the best intentioned aid workers.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/welfare-reform-direct-cash-poor/407236/
where you gonna get the money?
There are various answers depending on what style ubi or direct cash benefit is proposed. The simplest answer is just to replace the confusing and wasteful patchwork of different types of benefits with just one that's much simpler to administer but costs the same.
when, short of the dissolution of the country, has a government agency ever dissolved?
I don't know, I dare say that perhaps some state or local agencies have closed their doors. They don't really have to close, they can be merged or reduced is size it scope as happens fairly frequently.
Never happened to my knowledge. There is still a HELIUM agency which provides Helium for Dirgibles used in the war...which war? WWI...the need has gone..the agency remains.
Do you want to talk about Mohair? (used in WWII uniforms?)