>>And indeed we used to, before Ronald Reagan began defunding mental health programs in the US: Social welfare spending has massively increased in the US since

>>And indeed we used to, before Ronald Reagan began defunding mental health programs in the US: Social welfare spending has massively increased in the US since 1970. I would be willing to put money on taxpayer-funded spending on mental health seeing a similar increase. Blaming de-institutionalization on a federal bill passed in the 1980s is a misleading simplification of the issue that ignores the larger trends in place. Like I said, social spending has been steadily increasing in both inflation-adjusted terms, and in terms of percentage of the GDP expended on it. What changed is an opposition to institutionalization led by sociologists, who by way, are the most left-wing group of academics in the US according to surveys. The article you linked to points out that the first law against institutionalization was passed by Califorinia, which is usually at the forefront of left-wing reforms. The move toward "community care", where drug addicts can optionally avail themselves to mental health resources, and are otherwise allowed to wander the city un-supervised, has allowed the most vulnerable segment of the population to be mercilessly preyed upon by drug dealers. >>Personally, I vote to maintain the separation of church and state in the US, which means that the government shouldn't have a say in what appropriate personal behavior is. Which means as a culture, we have a responsibility to pay into a system which is concerned with the care of people who need it. This assumes we as a culture has a say in how much people contribute to supporting those who are incapable of taking care of themselves, but no say in whether people actually take care of themselves, and do things like show up to their job and avoid substance-abuse. So you're not removing the government's role in saying what appropriate personal behaviour is at all. Taxation is enforcing a particular type of behaviour, and you're all for that. You just don't want to restrict self-destructive behaviour that encourages dependency on programs provided at the taxpayer's expense.