It's unbelievable how much time, money, and wasted potential productivity the USA spends trying (and failing) to make sure that "undeserving" people don't have access to government welfare benefits of various kinds.
Contrast our funding of SSI with our funding of the defense industry, an industry that would be virtually indistinguishable from a middle class jobs program were it not for its tendency to start wars in the Middle East.
The military leaders have also been saying for years that our increase debt is an existential threat.
Again this is not criticizing the military. It’s more of a critique of the defense industry and their lobbyist.
It's still bad, but I would rather work on the assumption that this is merely incompetence rather than malice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths...
There's almost no evidence that there's widespread abuse of these programs... and claims to the contrary in some cases (like women having more kids to claim welfare) are talking points that are over a hundred years old.