And that’s because no matter what political party people belong to, they know they’re getting screwed over by the well-connected fiat wealthy who can navigate the impossibly complex tax code to their advantage. The social safety net, as weak as it is in the United States, still keeps a lot of people from ending up on the street. The downside, of course, is that it’s designed in a way to keep people dependent, because if their income level rises even by a small amount, they would lose their benefits and have nothing to fall back on.