[rayiner]

There's nothing in my OP that suggests I'm even talking about the U.S. much less the U.S. federal government. I was talking about democracies in general.

> Yes, the state governments should have more power--I assume that was your point.

No, my point is that your original statement ("it's certainly not the function of the USA govt to provide anything but what's defined in the constitution") is wrong. That might be true of the federal government, which is limited in scope, but that is not true of the state governments, which are not and were never conceived to be. The state governments can (try to) provide, almost without limit, whatever voters want them to provide.