> Wait, you are suggesting that medicaid, food stamps and low-income housing assistance should be offered to everybody?

Yes. None of these programs should exist if we can't offer them to 100% of the population. Both Democrats and Republicans use these programs as a vote bank and it polarizes our public discourse.

Means testing is basically a compromise between the two extremes that you offer: fund them completely (by raising taxes) or drop them completely (because they're too expensive). That's the best you're going to get in a system where lots of people with vastly differing views have to agree on a single conclusion: a compromise that makes everyone a little bit unhappy.