Historically, when a democratic government meets an existential problem that it can't convince or use its richest members to pay for, then that democratic gover

Historically, when a democratic government meets an existential problem that it can't convince or use its richest members to pay for, then that democratic government is, either slowly or quickly, replaced by a more authoritarian government that will then do one of two things: 1 - Forcibly use the wealth of the country to solve the problem, over the objection of those prevented that use of wealth previously. or 2 - Forcibly silence the people who are experiencing hardship as a result of the problem, so the society can go back to believing (realistically or not) that there is no such problem worth solving. This happens by degrees, as a very rough response to the degree of hardship presented by the problem, at first, but is the expected result if the society can't democratically answer the "who will pay for it, not I" question.