Er, did you miss this I wrote above:"...Just redistributing tax intakes to more accurately reflect governmental level responsibilities would save billions." I didn't suggest cutting any social programs, I just think they do not belong to the Federal government and any sensible interpretation of the US Constitution supports me on that.
The "Welfare" part in the U.S. constitution can be interpreted differently. besides, shuffling accounts does not provide savings in itself. State legislators could do the same weird things to budgets as federal legislators.



The 19th century 'social peace' thing isn't so important here. Austerity measures that hit the poor by cutting transfers will cause social troubles and unrest, that's what's counts.

By the way; Germans rather think of Erhardt and his Soziale Marktwirtschaft (social market economy) at the keyword Sozialer Friede (social peace).


There's a reason why Europe's industrialised countries used some welfare programs to influence social problems and the U.S. did not; Europe had no uncolonized West where the poor could go and grab natural ressources to fix their economic problems.