5 ms·

You are 100% right and it has baffled me ever since I noticed it. Anyone have a hypothesis as to why this happens/is happening?

• slg 7y ago
  Hangover from the cold war is my guess. The US is at the extreme compared to other western democracies on a lot of the old cold war battle lines regarding governments role in everyday life. Some examples include the generally pro private business environment and our objection to a greater social safety net including public healthcare.
  • BrandonMarc 7y ago
    Another side effect of the cold war - apathy. If the human race is going to nuke itself soon, anyway, what's the point doing things the right way, especially if that may make gas or food x% more expensive. The fear of Armageddon is less now, but the defense mechanism takes far longer to wear off.
    • iguy 7y ago
      But the big swing to environmental protection happened right in the middle of the cold war.
• momokoko 7y ago
  Because there is no social safety net. If you don't have a job you have to live on the street. Companies have the jobs. When the alternative is seen as living on the street, Americans see these issues with fear for their immediate well being. The environment being destroyed is a far-ish off problem. To many Americans, homeless could be a month or two of joblessness away.
  • gwright 7y ago
    What are you talking about? EITC, SNAP, Section 8 housing, SSI, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, etc. This site estimates over $700 billion per year spent on these programs: http://federalsafetynet.com/safety-net-programs.html http://federalsafetynet.com/safety-net-programs.html
    • adamnemecek 7y ago
      The question is about the quality of life people have when they are on such programs. Also, it's not about how much is spent but how much people actually get. I read somewhere not too long ago that if you divided the amount of money spend on welfare programs by the number of recipients a family of three would be getting $60,000 a year. This is not the case. Welfare administration eats up the difference.
      • chibg10 7y ago
        Do you have any numbers to back that last sentence up? I suspect the difference between your figure and intuition is less welfare administration bloat and more that most of it is eaten up by exorbitant healthcare costs through Medicare and Medicaid.
      • gwright 7y ago
        I just pointed out that $700 billion isn't nothing. I'm well aware of the myriad of flaws in the existing programs. I certainly wasn't claiming that the $700 billion was being spent wisely but apparently that is what a number of people assumed.
    • adamsea 7y ago
      Not quite the same as knowing you still can have decent health care if you are unemployed.
      • gwright 7y ago
        Sure, but I wasn't making any claims about healthcare. I was just stating the obvious that we spent lots of money on a safety net. Ironic that people seem to think that those programs are worthless, but I gather want to arrange for a lot more money to be distributed by the same organization that can't seem to do anything useful with the money it is already distributing. I'm not a fan of the affordable care act, but it seems completely obvious to me that we need to decouple health insurance from employment. I really don't understand why that wasn't a key element of health care reform.
• kristopolous 7y ago
  The organizations that support this position, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, AEI, Heritage Foundation, Heartland, Federalist Society, State Policy Network, Hudson Institute, Accuracy in Media, etc in aggregate have many billions in annual funding. Their only real goal is to sell that position to the American public. It's not like groups on the other side, such as Sea Shepherd, which has actual giant boats sailing around the world to combat whaling or ASPCA which operates hospitals, shelters, has large stocks of medicine, a staff of veterinarians, 24-hour crisis lines, etc. The business groups don't really do anything other than spinning and framing things to persuade the public. It's not like they're operating say, shelters for downtrodden wayward billionaires. All their money goes into campaigns for the public perception. Besides, it's not surprising that organizations who defend wealth and property rights have out-sized power and influence in a world where legislation has made wealth and property rights the primary source of power and influence. That's why structuring and understanding how rights, responsibilities and privileges are allocated in a society is really important.
• code_duck 7y ago
  The companies that profit from exploiting public resources and leaving pollution behind have the money to pay for propaganda.