Because many Americans simultaneously believe in paying your own way and egalitarianism. Direct cash transfers as an anti-poverty measure are unpopular. In kind

Because many Americans simultaneously believe in paying your own way and egalitarianism. Direct cash transfers as an anti-poverty measure are unpopular. In kind transfers and low income discounts appeal to egalitarianism. We Americans also treat driving as a de facto right. Driving is considered something that must be provided and the cost figured out later (a dignity not a price).