| >... but the bottom has no floor. That really doesn't represent reality. The majority of federal spending goes to transfer payments: >...The federal government spent $2.87 trillion on transfers to individuals in 2017, accounting for 72.2 percent of federal spending. https://www.concordcoalition.org/issue-brief/troubling-trend... One estimate is that about 22% of state government is spent on public welfare: >...Another 22 percent of expenditures went toward public welfare. Public welfare includes spending on means-tested programs, such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Supplemental Security Income. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... The people of the US also give a great deal of money to charity: >...The United States has been the most generous country in the world over the past decade. >That’s the conclusion of the World Giving Index, a ranking that measured how likely residents of 128 countries were to practice acts of generosity. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generou... >...Americans give around 3 percent of our collective income to charity — more than the citizens of any other country. Better yet, these are individual Americans, not the government, who are generating the lion’s share of the contributions. https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017... |