> I would note though, for the purposes of fairness, it's a small percentage of your taxes that go to paying for such programs versus things like the military and interest on debt.
No, its not. US public healthcare spending (which in most states is the lion’s share of public welfare spending, and is also on the US is more than defense spending and is, in fact, pretty typical as a share of GDP, high as a share of taxes (because of the light US tax burden), and enormous per capita compared to other industrialized nations. Its small as a share of total national healthcare spending compared to other countries, because we have to even more private spending on top of it, and the whole healthcare system (or, rather, the literally hundreds of mutually-interfering public and private healthcare systems) is the single most inefficient healthcare delivery system in the world, but we spend plenty of money on it, just not well.
No, its not. US public healthcare spending (which in most states is the lion’s share of public welfare spending, and is also on the US is more than defense spending and is, in fact, pretty typical as a share of GDP, high as a share of taxes (because of the light US tax burden), and enormous per capita compared to other industrialized nations. Its small as a share of total national healthcare spending compared to other countries, because we have to even more private spending on top of it, and the whole healthcare system (or, rather, the literally hundreds of mutually-interfering public and private healthcare systems) is the single most inefficient healthcare delivery system in the world, but we spend plenty of money on it, just not well.