This is part of the myth of American exceptionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

This is part of the myth of American exceptionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism). We're #1, even when we're dead last. Americans love getting free shit, and hate giving anything away. We love getting tax cuts & refunds, stimulus checks, welfare, food stamps. But when we're not eligible to receive it, we hate giving away food stamps, welfare. Everyone thinks we pay too much tax, and doesn't want the state to do anything. But then we complain that the government isn't solving all our problems with all the money we aren't paying in taxes. To avoid all the complaints from directly taxing everyone, we tax alcohol and tobacco (in addition to income), but we don't tax corporate profits or rich people, and have a small sales tax compared to the EU. America actually has a bit of a crisis of food. Tens of millions of families go hungry every year in the US. Yet we export hundreds of billions of dollars worth of (mostly) feed grain and corn. It's not that we're too proud to take hand-outs, we'd just rather let our neighbors starve.