The Roots of Our Distrust
I saw a comment online that said, “I just wish the government would stop stealing from me. I can manage my own retirement.” I do not read that as anger for its own sake. I read it as frustration from someone who feels they are paying into a system that does not seem to serve them. It is hard to blame anyone for that. If you spend your entire working life watching money leave your paycheck without seeing much come back, the word “stealing” can feel emotionally accurate even if it is not technically accurate.
There is a deeper truth beneath that sentence. Most Americans do not feel the benefits of the systems they fund. They see the cost. They rarely see the return. That creates resentment. Not because people are selfish, but because they feel alone in an economy that demands they carry everything by themselves.
But the data tell a different story from the belief that everyone could manage their own retirement if payroll taxes disappeared. According to the Federal Reserve, the median retirement savings for Americans in their fifties is around seventy thousand dollars total. Nearly half have no retirement savings at all. And the number of people who can invest consistently for forty years without being derailed by layoffs, medical bills, or market shocks is very small. Even professional investors struggle to outperform a simple index fund. The ability to self-manage retirement is not evenly distributed. It depends on knowledge, time, and the kind of stability that many people never receive.
This is where another reality becomes clear. A friend once told me he is doing well because he planned well. He saved early. He invested carefully. He avoided debt. He believes anyone could do the same if they made similar choices. I do not question his discipline. I question the idea that discipline was the only factor. He was able to plan because the ground under him remained steady. His parents were healthy. His jobs offered insurance. His wages kept pace long enough to allow him to build something secure. He never faced the kind of setback that wipes out years of effort.
Many people did. There are Americans who grew up in households already stretched to the limit. Others were laid off at the worst time. Some carried medical debt that drained their savings. Some had children young because they lacked support. Some paid for emergencies with high interest credit because they had nowhere else to turn. None of this reflects poor character. It reflects the truth that stability is not evenly distributed.
Planning is never just about discipline. It is about opportunity. People cannot plan for retirement while juggling medical bills and unstable wages. They cannot recover from investment losses if their margin for error is thin. They cannot think decades ahead while trying to stay afloat each month. A system that works only for the people who start with advantages is not a stable system. It turns into a sorting mechanism. It rewards those who had room to plan and quietly punishes those who did not.
This leads to a difficult question. What happens to the millions of Americans who are already past the point where planning alone can save them. It may be too late for them to build a retirement from scratch. Telling them they should have made better choices does nothing. It does not pay for groceries or keep them housed. A society that claims to value responsibility needs an answer for the people who are already at the edge. If the system cannot carry them, they will fall, and the cost of that failure will return to all of us.
A second challenge sits underneath the conversation. Many Americans have been conditioned to believe that receiving anything from the government signals weakness or moral failure. They grew up hearing that independence means carrying every burden alone. Even programs they rely on are often reframed as something separate from government support. Medicare is seen differently from housing aid, even though both are publicly funded. Farm subsidies are viewed as investments, while food assistance is viewed as dependency, even though both come from taxpayers. People protect the programs they use and criticize the ones they imagine other people use.
This belief makes it difficult to see the value of shared systems. The moment a program is labeled a benefit, many people disengage. But stability is not a luxury. It is the foundation that allows anyone to exercise meaningful independence. No one can plan for retirement, invest for the long term, or shoulder personal responsibility without a basic level of protection around them. A predictable health system and a stable retirement program do not undermine self-reliance. They make it possible.
The idea that government should never intervene was never tested against real outcomes. It was inherited. Once people see that shared systems can expand their freedom rather than shrink it, the fear attached to the word “benefits” begins to fade. Receiving something from the government does not erase independence. It gives people a solid enough foundation to stand on. That foundation is what allows discipline and hard work to create real results.
This brings us back to the original point. When a government collects resources without producing visible results, people will naturally feel resentful. They think the problem is the tax. The problem is the absence of benefit. And in a country where public systems are often underfunded or undermined until they barely function, their resentment makes sense.
But none of this is inevitable. Other countries pool resources and produce outcomes many Americans can barely imagine. Their citizens live longer. Their medical debt is negligible. Their retirement systems are stable instead of precarious. They do not talk about government as a thief because they see what they receive in return. Their systems give them a foundation strong enough to make personal responsibility meaningful.
The person who wrote that comment does not need ridicule. They need a system that works. They need a retirement plan that does not depend on luck. They need health care that cannot destroy their savings. They need a society willing to invest in its people rather than lecturing them about choices they never had the chance to make. They do not need less government. They need a government that produces results equal to what they contribute.
A system that works only for the fortunate is not a functional system. A society that chooses to build something better creates freedom in the most practical sense. Not freedom from taxes. Freedom from fear.