It might help if Americans called welfare programs—current benefits for select populations, paid for by current taxes—by their proper name, rather than by the soothing (and misleading) labels of "entitlements" and "social insurance." That way, we might ask ourselves who deserves welfare and why. We could consider all of federal spending and not just small bits of it. But most Americans don't want to admit that they're current or prospective welfare recipients. They prefer to think that they automatically deserve whatever they've been promised simply because they've been promised. They do not want to pose the basic questions, and their political leaders mirror that reluctance. This makes the welfare state immovable and the budget situation intractable.
Naturally I want to compare New Zealand. Forget Defence which has only been a miniscule item of government spending in the past forty years. And the closest figures I could get my hands on were from 1966-67;
Welfare state spending went from 58% to 76%. (Apologies for the basic piecharts which were only possible with the help of my eight year-old)
Almost a third more spending with what to show for it? Of course. We are all healthier, happier and wiser.
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