Quite a few Americans have a haunting fear of a poor person getting something they don’t deserve. Hence, our social welfare system is not on par with what one expects in other rich nations. There is also what I call the Daniel Boone image that Americans tend to possess. We like to think of ourselves as self reliant and if government just got out of the way of taking our money via taxation then people wouldn’t be in any sort of predicament not of their own choosing.