Yes, absolutely. The key difference is in the incentives/outcomes of the policy. UBI involves lessening incentive to participate in the labor market, lower taxes increases the incentive (because you keep more of your earnings). At some level of 'passive' income it becomes very difficult for a rational person to make the decision to go to work every day.
UBI is one of those ideas that is theoretically awesome but doesn't survive contact with reality, or rather the inevitable flawed humans that administer it.
> UBI is one of those ideas that is theoretically awesome but doesn't survive contact with reality
You don't know that - you just base it on your theory.
Of course, every idea gets perverted by current political system, but the problem is often not the idea itself.
Huge appeal of UBI is that it's simple hence easier to control. Taxes were supposed to be simple too and yet they got overcomplected to serve the special interests.
The danger of abusing UBI for political gains is as real as it happened with taxes, but it doesn't mean the idea is inherently bad - we just have an inefficient and harmful government system and fixing it should be a priority if we want anything nice like properly implemented UBI. Another Yang's idea, Ranked Choice Voting could at least mitigate some of the issues like political bipolarity.
It seems you agree with me that UBI is a good idea, but that human beings and imperfect systems muck it all up.
I have yet to see a government institution remain uncorrupted and focused on the original principles upon which it was founded. That has little to do with politics as every party comes up with some bad ideas once they find themselves with power. This is at least partially due to the fact that every party is under constant pressure to 'do something' even if doing absolutely nothing (or at least nothing visible) is the right choice.
UBI is one of those ideas that is theoretically awesome but doesn't survive contact with reality, or rather the inevitable flawed humans that administer it.