The economic meltdown is inevitable anyway. Sure the welfare state has been costly, but that's not even getting into the police state which now has expenditures equal to the Cold War military, or a couple of ongoing wars, but there was a lot of fake prosperity that the bills are coming due for and two ways that works, either build an economy capable of paying it off with new productivity and technology (not likely since corruption and cronyism seem to screw that up every time) or hyperinflate the debt out of existence, which will leave the country less creditworthy as a whole.
What the hell were they thinking in California when the cost of a regular single family home in a lot of "middle class" neighborhoods was fast approaching $500K for new buyers? When the cost of building permits and other intangibles was regularly higher than the actual costs of the materials to build anything? When guys go to jail for heading out in the woods and putting up a little cabin to live in, because the woods is "public property".
You cant get young people to be in the mood to start their own lives and families when they graduate universities in debt and looking at $10 per hour "careers" while the corporate world is only interested in the top 10% at actual career level wages. This thing about "kids" staying home past age 30 is getting pretty common, up to the point that is also not sustainable past two generation without gentrified wealth accumulation, and that is getting less common. The Republicans know by now they can't continue lying to the rural populations about why people are remaining poor and downwardly mobile and expect to keep political loyalties intact.
Just look in your average craigslist right now at housing prices vs wage offers on common housing options vs common wage options, and that's across the board. Everything out there right now demands certificates and or experience, most housing requires background and credit checks one way or another. People regularly are forced to lie about the income requirements for the housing, whether it is to rent or buy, but the fact is, it's not sustainable in the long term period.
There has to be a crash to trash the fake wealth and then have an economic rebuild on the basis of productivity. Social services put a humane standard of living floor on pensioners but this shit about non-producers triple dipping to be millionaires several times over, guess what, the rest of us can't afford that no more than the working poor can afford what is functionally an 87% tax system.
