That is precisely the question we should be addressing. Why should we assume that we are stuck with fiat currency? Why should we continue to allow government to steal our savings through inflation? Why should we allow government and other debtors to partially default through inflation? Why should we continue to allow government to penalize other non-investing productive and wise citizens through fraudulent insurance programs that simply monetize failed or foolish investments? I am specifically referring to FSLIC, FDIC, flood insurance, and the myriad host of government sponsored insurance programs that make the government into the largest insurance company on the planet.
There is a by-product issue to this question. Most of the myriad regulatory agencies and the huge burden of regulation that permeates our country are based on conditions required to meet insurability under the government insurance schemes. Want your regulatory burden lowered? Get government out of the insurance business.
"I believe in unemployment "insurance" as a government controlled rainy day fund.."
Why?
Is there some place in the Constitution that says I should insure you against job loss and further why I should support you while you can't seem to find a job? Most of my working life was spent as a self-employed person. I paid "unemployment insurnce" premiums to government for as many as 25 employees who worked for me, but until I incorporated and became an employee myself was not eligible to participate. But I carried a substantial disability policy through a private insurance company to cover the contingency in case I couldn't work.
There is nothing that precludes private insurance companies from providing "unemployment insurance" to any worker who might want to purchase "job insurance". The reason you don't see such policies is because the government charges premiums substantially below real market rates and the premiums are well below true market risks. Government loses money on every one of its insurance programs. Federally insured, means the under funded losses are all monetized. It is unconstitutional. It is pure socialism. It is corrupt. Without fiat currency, socialism cannot exist. If conservatives want to break the back of socialism, all we need to do is stop accepting fiat currency as payment for goods and services.
In that context unemployment insurance taxes merely cut back on some economic growth (we both hire fewer widget makers) in order to allow some widget makers to maintain their consumptive spending in a downturn. Rather than a short but serious downturn we end up with longer but less disruptive downturns. The social value is that rather than move to find new work, the unemployed widget makers can weather the downturn while maintaining family and community ties.