529 or Coverdell | 64.3 |
Home mortgage interest deduction | 60.0 |
Hope or Lifetime Learning Tax Credit | 59.6 |
Student Loans | 53.3 |
Child and Dependent Tax Credit | 51.7 |
Earned income tax credit | 47.1 |
Social Security - Retirement and Survivors | 44.1 |
Pell Grants | 43.1 |
Unemployment Insurance | 43.0 |
Veterans Benefits (other than G.I. Bill) | 41.7 |
G.I. Bill | 40.3 |
Medicare | 39.8 |
Head Start | 37.2 |
Social Security Disability | 28.7 |
SSI - Supplementary Security Income | 28.2 |
Medicaid | 27.8 |
Welfare/Public Assistance | 27.4 |
Government Subsidized Housing | 27.4 |
Food Stamps | 25.4 |
Many of these programs are important to the American safety net and to middle class prosperity, but I leave line-by-line budget and efficacy analysis to those more qualified than I. My point here is rhetorical: How is it that so many Americans are entirely unaware of the important role played by government in modern economies -- even in "free market" economies such as the United States?
The standard response is to blame "the media" or conservative framing. This is as lazy as it is defeatist. The fact is that Republican claims about government are demonstrably false and ring of a deeply amoral selfishness that is at odds with the truly compassionate nature of real Americans. If Democrats are not out there every day making exactly these two points, then they have only themselves to blame when they are "outframed" by Republicans.
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