you only encourage more takers when so many people want more and don't have to pay for it
I understand that is your point of view.
It is, however, irrelevant to my point that great wealth has been used to buy policy that increases wealth concentration and that greater wealth is being used to continue pushing for more.
I know it is a conservative meme that we have become a nation of takers, but let me ask you, back in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, when the top tax rates were in the 90 percent range, were we a nation of takers?
I submit that the data conservatives use ignores the fact that because conservative policies have been effective, Americans at the very top have MUCH more and the bottom 90% has less, so when you look at tax revenue distribution it looks like the top has a larger burden, but since we know, empirically that tax rates at the top are historically low, something else must be at work, and that something is wealth and income concentration.
If you have policies that depress income for the bottom 90%, and you have social programs that kick in for people at certain poverty level incomes, it is ironic that people who support the wage depressing policies would complain about the wage depressed folks when their wages are depressed to poverty levels such that they are eligible for the social programs. And worse, blame the social programs for their economic circumstances.
When I look around, I see so many full grown, middle aged adults working for less than I earned when I was a part time worker in college 30 years ago. I would suggest that you reconsider your position of blaming Americans and think about who made the policies that have brought us here. It's not necessarily an R v D problem, Democrats have been bought by the same unlimited lobbyists that bought Republicans, the biggest difference is that Republicans were ideologically inclined to support these policies before the cash started pouring in.