If it were, why would they offer welfare programs at all? Surely an "indolence tax" assessed on anyone with income below a certain threshold would be more cruel.
Don’t give them any ideas. Roughly half of US politicians would probably support that. Without constitutional safeguards, a shocking number of them would support turning their opponents into Soylent Green.
(For those playing at home this is a slogan tossed around with connotations of society wide rebellion - which would not be a comfortable outcome for rich people.)
It's frankly amazing that we still have welfare, social security, etc., at all. The pro-cruelty folks have been diligently working to discredit them since FDR enacted them during the great depression.
