Ironic how uncharitable you're being while accusing others of the same.
It's pretty easy to understand why someone who perceives themselves as working hard and paying taxes would be upset when someone else seems to be using their government benefits to buy more than the "bare necessities" without the hard work.
Whether that perspective is helpful, good, or correct is a different matter but it's certainly not an affront to "freedom" as you mentioned. Money from the government might not be less worthy but it does come at the cost of someone else.
> Money from the government might not be less worthy but it does come at the cost of someone else.
This is partially true at best. Spending does not equal revenue, and it doesn't need to. The best way to think about government taxation is that is money that is collected and destroyed. Then new money is printed to pay for government services.
In other words, the government spending money did not take any additional money out of your pocket...in fact, for the past 40 years, for the most part, the government has been trying to put money back in your pocket through tax cuts. Of course, we are now at the point where another tax cut doesn't effect 70% of tax payers because their tax burden is so low or non-existent.
Regardless of the actual policies and intentions, a person who pays money to the government in taxes is going to see someone getting money from the government as being partially funded, or taken, from themselves.
For what it's worth though I agree with you. Government programs should be funded and planned based on net-benefit to society not strictly on an individual idea of fairness.
An example would be homelessness or drug rehab programs where it ends up being cheaper and better for society to help people than to continuously ignore and/or punish them.
It's pretty easy to understand why someone who perceives themselves as working hard and paying taxes would be upset when someone else seems to be using their government benefits to buy more than the "bare necessities" without the hard work.
Whether that perspective is helpful, good, or correct is a different matter but it's certainly not an affront to "freedom" as you mentioned. Money from the government might not be less worthy but it does come at the cost of someone else.