Half of U.S. recipients say they haven't used a gov't social program -- GROAN!

But I pays all 'dem taxes fur my Medicare! I ain't some lazy soshlust, I earnt it!

Seriously though, this begs the question: are Americans 1) dumb, 2) ignorant, or 3) in denial? Regardless, this doesn't bode well for our republic.

Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program"

Posted by Cory Doctorow

July 8, 2011 | Boing Boing

Table URL: http://craphound.com/images/programbeneficiaries.jpeg

"Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era," a paper by Cornell's Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions Suzanne Mettler features this remarkable chart showing that about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they "have not used a government social program." It's the "Keep your government hands off my Medicare" phenomena writ large: a society of people who subsist on mutual aid and redistributive policies who've been conned (and conned themselves) into thinking that they are rugged individualists and that everyone else is a parasite.