This is actually a pretty simple issue, about which too many Americans are (not coincidentally) fatally wrong.

The government WILL spend money. That’s what they do. And in fact, it will spend too much money - through negligence, corruption and simple inefficiency, it will waste money. Again, that’s what they do.

So the whole notion that we can get the government to stop wasting money is foolishness.

And note this and note it well - THE MONEYED CLASS RECOGNIZES THAT FACT. When their represenstives run for office promising fiscal responsibility, they’re lying, every time, without exception.

The issue that actually matters is for whose benefit that money will be spent. Some portion of it will necessarily be spent for the benefit of the officials and bureaucrats in charge of spending. That’s unfortunate, but unavoidable.

The rest of it, broadly, will be spent for the benefit of the common people or for the benefit of the wealthy few.

And that’s where the US has gone fatally wrong.

All too many Americans have been successfully indoctrinated into reflexively opposing money spent for the benefit of the common people - characterizing it scornfully as “handouts” and condemning it immediately and entirely.

They’re (not accidentally) under the impression that by opposing such spending, they can limit the reach of government and stop it from spending so much, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The simple reality is that the government is going ro spend that money (and more) anyway, and freed from the responsibility to spend it to benefit the conmon people, they will instead spend it to benefit the wealthy few.

And it really is just that simple. Governmental fiscal responsibility is a fantasy, and every dollar that’s withheld from social programs is NOT a dollar saved - it’s a dollar that’s going to go to the wealthy few instead of the common people.