I'm not arguing for privately- or publicly-run welfare. I'm arguing that Jerome is wrong to assume that the state will cover all the bases.
The free rider problem is a good point, of course, but is it not an even greater problem to have citizens voting for politicians who will increase the budget while cutting their taxes? Now we've moved into an intergenerational free-rider problem, except that, in this case, kids -- whose federal credit is maxed out by their brainless, spoiled Boomer parents -- have no say in the decision. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
And you are also of course right to hold that the state will not cover all the bases. But it should cover most, and this is the point I think he's trying to make. There will always be places for philanthropy, but philanthropy is not a policy.
I reckon that Jerome is experiencing something very personal in this regard, and I can tell you that I went through the same thing in America, and instead of getting support for my wife staying at home to care for my son, I burned through savings and ultimately went into debt. (And let's not even get into the hospital bills which, despite my supposedly excellent insurance, piled up.) In America, getting out from under severe misfortune is left to charity (eg, American Children's Cancer Society, United Way, et c.) This is as criminal as it is inefficient.
This being said, citizens may think they are voting for a simultaneous increase in the budget and decrease in taxes, but this is simply what the fools are led to believe. There'll be taxes to pay for it, one way or another, inflation being one such tax in all likelihood. A nation of rubes when it comes to governance is what it comes down to. "C'est un scandale !"
My essential point is that nobody should expect the private sector or the public sector to accomplish everything. They're complements, not substitutes. Where one falls short, the other should pick up the slack. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
