[xkcd-sucks]

Governments, like most living things, want to be at the top of the power hierarchy. Families are similar organisms that accrue power similarly. Where families are powerful, governments and corporations are weak. So, governments do things to cripple families so they cannot become powerful enough to be dangerous. Retaining wealth across generations is a thing that makes a family powerful.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Government, like Soylent Green, is people.

The US government has been the pet toy of a small cadre of powerful families for a long time now.