All socialist entitlement programs always make for a weak people... fact
Bullshit. Every first nation in the world has a longer life expectancy that the United States, due in no small part to government-funded, cradle to the grave, health care.
Every first nation in the world has better public school education than the US, in no small part to the idea that to get quality teachers, you need to pay them and pay them well. Otherwise these people will take their skills to private industry where they can make a living wage. They also fund schools for poor children in poor areas with the same amount of money they spend on the children of the rich in higher income neighbourhoods, and provide the same resources, because these nations know that their children are the future.
Americans are more interested in ensuring their children receive a RELIGIOUS, CONSERVATIVE education which reinforces the most regressive, anti-science notions (the Earth is 6000 years old, there is no man-made climate change, and the United States is the greatest nation in the world), none of which are true.
Your country is losing ranking in every measure of live-ability that matters: health care, education, lower working class and middle class income, opportunity, infrastructure. Everything that makes a country great, is slowly being drained from your society, and people are encouraged to hate the poor as a drain on your economy.
It is not the poor who are draining your economy - it is the rich. As more and more wealth is taken by the 1% from the Middle Class, the Middle Class continues to blame social programs instead of the Reagan Tax Cuts which is where the blame squarely belongs. Until Reagan revamped the tax code in the early 1980's, the tax code supported the idea that a high tide lifted all boats, to the idea that if the rich got richer, it would trickle down to the rest of us. It didn't happen in the 1980's and it didn't happen in the 2000's when W did it either.
What it did do was lead to a major stock market crash. Reagan's in 1987, and Bush's in 2008. Notice how long it takes for these cuts to destabilize the stock market. The difference between St. Ronnie's crash and W's is this: Reagan was in power at the beginning of the wealth transfer to the top. The working poor still had some savings and the middle class were encouraged to use credit and thought they were better off, even as their equity took a hit.
By the time W's crash hit, the working class has been sucked dry, and were dependent on "earned income credits" to supplement their incomes, and the middle class had maxxed out their credit cards. Most of the nation's wealth has been transferred to the 1% and no one but those at the top has an appreciable amount of savings left. The economy cannot withstand another Republican stock market crash along the lines of 2008 or 1987.