While I agree with most of this, the reality is: our welfare state is a house of cards. The fact that it’s endured as long as it has without collapsing doesn’t mean its early critics were wrong.
The Soviet Union lasted almost 75 years. And then it was gone. For its first 25 or 30 years, many Western scholars and thinkers were very intrigued by it.
And, to this day, there are still people who blame its failure on the personalities who led it or specific mistakes that were made - rather than its fundamental flaws.
However much we may like things like Social Security and Medicare, any discussion about them that leaves out the fact that, according to Janet Yellen, they’re $175 Trillion underfunded over the next 75 years is a discussion that is disconnected from reality.
Our present situation is indisputably unsustainable.