No point in trying to cover it all in one post, but I'll tell you a story that may explain where I'm coming from.

My mother was a secretary, my father was a sheet metal worker. He died of asthma when I was 4 years old. My mother raised me in a government housing project working in the steno pool for a man who looked straight through her as if she was invisible; a Hispanic widow with no degree, but who could type, take shorthand, (both obsolete arts, these days) and write formal business prose in two languages.

She bought our house with my father's unused Veterans Housing benefits, and I paid for my government-subsidized state college education with my GI Bill after I got back from the service. I didn't have to borrow a penny, but there was always a State or Federal part-time job I could weasel into at school summers and after class. I was able to buy my present house with my VA benefits, and today I am able to live off my Social Security, my State Pension, and my VA medical benefits after I was forced to retire early on account of "the economy". For about half my working life, I have either worked on government jobs or for government contractors.

Without the "welfare state" I have no idea where or what I'd be right now, but I have a feeling I'd probably wouldn't be discussing the subtleties of political economy with a man a continent away.