SS is socialism. Setting up Fannie Mae and thus getting the feds involved with home ownership...
Entitlements have shown themselves to be impossible to remove. It's charity, and a pyramid scheme. People like getting free stuff taken from others. Since all of it is paid for by a minority, it is hard to get support for removal since even people who claim to be conservative will whine about getting their due (even if the current "due" is grossly out of sorts with what they should have expected during their working lives).
All the years of SS until recently have run on a surplus. The surplus was then loaned to the government (they bought t-bills with it) to finance government spending beyond their means. That spending was for programs enacted and done during the working lives of those now collecting. So they overpaid for entitlements, then allowed their government to spend that money—ON THEMSELVES—not complain when those of us left with the tab have to pay for their mistakes. Ugh. Anyway, FDR started US socialism in earnest, and all since was simply tagged onto it.
Regardless, rankings are stupid, no matter who you put on top, or what metric you use to make the ranking as they are ALL subjective.
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