Norway isn't even really spending it's oil money, so this entire comparison is entirely invalid. Norway puts 100% of the oil revenue in a trust fund and takes o

Norway isn't even really spending it's oil money, so this entire comparison is entirely invalid. Norway puts 100% of the oil revenue in a trust fund and takes out no more than 4% per year. Think again on the similar GDP Per Capita rankings, and review this: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG Norway only spends about 22% of it's GDP on Social Benefits. The U.S. spends 19.2%. Breaking that down into dollars does tell a different story: Norway spends about 50% more on social benefits than the U.S. does, but you can hardly argue that the U.S. cannot afford it. To throw Canada into the mix, it spends about 17%. That's a lower percentage of a lower GDP. In fact that would imply that Canada spends approximately 25% LESS on social benefits than the U.S. and has still has free healthcare. One caveat to this is that I am comparing social benefit percentages from 2014 and comparing them to GDP Per Capita data from 2015, so take the exact numbers with a grain of salt. The argument I'm trying to make is that it's political, not economic.