Smashing The Myth Of America's "Stingy" Welfare State

According to the usual news sources, Donald Trump's new budget proposal "envisions steep cuts to America’s social safety net"and will "gut social programs." Most of the cuts were proposed to pave the way for more Pentagon spending.

In truth, Trump's proposal doesn't matter, and Congress will set to work piling on more deficit spending for both social programs and for the Pentagon.

But, the debate of "gutting" social programs will no doubt be used to perpetuate, yet again, the myth that the United States is ruled by libertarian social Darwinists who ensure that no more than a few pennies are spent via social programs for the poor.

Now setting aside the question of whether or not social programs are the best way to address poverty, the fact is that the United States spending on social programs is on a par with Australia and Switzerland, and can hardly be described as "laissez-faire."

Moreover, government spending on healthcare per capita in the United States is the fourth largest in the world.

Governments in the United States pour money into social-benefits programs at rates typical to a Western welfare state. We can debate whether or not the way this is done is sub-optimal or not, but the fact remains, that if we're going to talk about social programs, the amount of spending in the US is not low in a global context.

According to the 2016 social expenditure database at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), public social spending as a percentage of GDP in the US was 19.4 percent:

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