The benefits that are intended to go exclusively to the impoverished though, those are extremely means-tested and often have work requirements or other hoops to jump through.
Only to those who paid into the system and far less than they personally could have earned on investing the same dollars.
Additionally, a lot of these programs will pay out beyond what you've personally put in - programs like Medicaid are nearly entirely social subsidies to ease poverty and financial distress, so I'm not certain where you'd find the money to pay for them if not looking at either other people's taxes or debt.
As a taxpayer I expect the money I give to the government to be evident in some social projects but I don't personally expect that for each dollar I pay that I'd see a dollar in benefit to me personally. I have a belief that I indirectly benefit from the expenditure of charitable safety net programs even if I never expect to collect from them directly - the improvement in the lives of those around me is to my personal benefit by making society more just and egalitarian as well as reducing the incentive for crime which is a difficult to measure but observable direct benefit to myself.
The fact that so much of our budget goes to debt servicing is probably my personal biggest objection as it is effectively just a wealth extraction from our earn national budget to some select individuals.
I don't even understand the thought process here. Taxes are not being used for productive investments. Some spending is growth, but probably not half.
I could see expecting the median citizen to be flat over their lifetime as a goal.
> Most American workers receive significantly more from Social Security over their lifetimes than they contribute through payroll taxes.
https://legalclarity.org/is-social-security-worth-it-contrib...
They have a 6k sqft house with a basketball court, pool and a pool house in the prime location in West Los Angeles.
They had to join two lots to build to their liking.
And the other 80% are little to no more efficient in terms of dollars input vs services rendered.
0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...
And there's a pretty straight line between that and government subsidies for sugar and processed foods in general, not to mention car-based infrastructure, although the latter doesn't stop other countries from not having crippling obesity rates.
No there isn't. Sugar subsidy accounts for 1.7 cents per 12-ounce can of soda. Soda in the US is generally inelastic, and research has shown that a 10% increase in price results in lessss than a 5% decrease in consumption. Americans just like sugar and sitting, culturally.
It’s hard getting normies to admit that if soft drinks weren’t so heavily subsidized by the government at every step of manufacture and distribution, there would be less overall obesity.
According to OECD data, US healthcare spending in 2023 was 28% from government schemes, 55% from health insurance, 11% out-of-pocket, and 5% from other sources. For most countries, the health insurance category is further split into compulsory and voluntary categories, but that distinction does not really exist in the US.
All US health insurance spending is reported in the compulsory health insurance category. Probably because the bulk of the spending is from employment-based insurance, which is effectively mandatory. (You usually can't opt out and take cash instead.) Naive aggregators then combine government spending and compulsory insurance and report that as public spending.
The wealthy people that run insurance companies bribe our politicians to keep it that way.
They get that cash price amount from a tiny amount of people, 70% of that price from private insurers, 30-60% from Medicare, less from Medicaid. Even then, they have to basically litigate the bills through private insurance appeals.
If they had one payer which had a single reimbursement rate, they wouldn't have to do these shenanigans.
Speaking as a Canadian, I wonder if at least part of it is the attitude that investments in these areas are "welfare" and not simply a part of the portfolio of essential services that are delivered by the state to citizens?
[1]: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-...
[2]: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2...
It's got to be desperately frustrating trying to fight this kind of thinking when you've got whole communities who have never even thought to question it.
My main hope at this point is with bottom-up type efforts. Let Mamdani show people that an effective city government can fill potholes and operate a few at-cost supermarkets. Let that be the start of citizens expecting more than chainsaw-waving and twitter meltdowns for their tax dollars.
Also speaking as a Canadian, I don't understand the distinction you're drawing.
I would say that the mainstream Canadian view is the opposite of this. We expect healthcare funding and many are supportive of the strikes when it gets cut, but we are much more likely to treat military budget as the purchase of a lot of unnecessary toys.
If anything this speaks to the cost of welfare in America.
The corollary is that many suggestions to reduce welfare spending would lead to even less actual welfare being delivered, without addressing systemic cost problems.
The reality is the US operates the world's largest social services apparatus, including the world's largest public healthcare system.
Also, as other commenters mention, the specifics of how money is disbursed or spent, matters. If, say, pharmaceutical companies are allowed to massively over-charge, than the same level of care would mean a higher level of spending than in other world states.