What is the welfare state America wants, and what is the one it can afford? This is not a question Americans are ready to discuss — so much so that their elected officials have shut down the government to avoid it.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. welfare state has grown to cover not just the poor but, increasingly, the middle class. When there is a temporary economic hardship, it tends to be used as an excuse for a permanent expansion of social insurance programs. In the broadest terms, this phenomenon explains the current shutdown.

In 2021, during the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan increased the subsidies available to people to buy health insurance on the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. Designed to ensure that their premiums did not exceed a certain percentage of their incom

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