I know this sounds cold, but the people who most utilize "free" things are the absolute least likely to understand it's not free.
Most people think the state is a machine of infinite money, and the only thing preventing $1 million checks in the mail to everyone is corporate lobbyists protecting the elite.
It's a completely absurd claim that "most" people think the only reason the government isn't sending million dollar checks is hoarding.
The government spending too much and the debt being large is an extremely popular talking point, at least half of everyone would say "the federal government should spend less than they do" much less million dollar checks for every person.
I don't know if I have ever met someone in the ~40% of Americans who don't pay income tax, complaining that their government benefits are going too far.
The people who complain most about government spending are the people who pay a lot in taxes while only directly getting a fraction of it back in useful services. Taxes for roads and police? No Problem. Taxes for rent subsidies? Icy.
I know a number of people who pay very little taxes and enjoy tht benefit of government services, many of them are vocally against government spending despite that they would be personally harmed if they stopped
If what you are saying is true then Democrats would smash every election, "government spending too high" is demonstrably a fairly popular opinion with both low and high income based on voting.
I think there is a lot of confusion about it. You overestimate people. :P I wish it was a case of me underestimating people, but after the things I saw...
You are overestimating people. I've met several people with higher education who don't understand that trade-off. They see the world as a fight between good guys who want to give the society free stuff and the bad guys that want to make money out of it.
It's less so the taverns own money and more so that the food, wine, bar (or future visits) subsidize the beer, ie the food is taxed so that the beer is free.
Same with credit card rewards, they're not paid for by the bar, they're paid for by volume at the bar, debit/cash transactions, and the savings on cash controls, and the people that can't payoff their credit card bill.
Sure, but that hides most of the facts about how it works. There are a lot of parties involved in this, including people paying for it and being paid for it, and those paying probably out number those getting it for free at point of use. Sweeping that under the rug is just a sales ploy, which shows what the outlet wants you to believe about this program.
I wouldn't call using the most commonly accepted (and concise) terminology a "sales ploy". If you want every service to be accompanied by a wordy explanation of how it works, then every article would need to mention that the current status quo involves complicated taxpayer subsidy in the form of dependent care FSA accounts and a host of state-level programs.
This is a good example, because a "freeway" is free at point of use, but obviously understood to not be free of construction and maintenance cost. It is called "freeway" because "free-to-drive-on highway" would be too wordy.
Poll a random subset of people with the question "are you in favor of free childcare?". X% will say yes.
Poll another set with the question "are you in favor of taxpayer funded childcare?". Y% will say yes.
I would bet any amount of money that X>Y, and (X-Y)% of people did not think about the fact that a free government service is not actually free.
Exactly how big X and Y are, I couldn't say. But identifying propaganda and deceptive language is never something that should be discouraged, even when it's advocating for a cause you agree with.
Me? I'm not opposed to it. I think tax-payer funded attempts to increase birthrates in our own population are a good idea. We should be doing more to encourage people to have and raise children.
I'm opposed to weasel words and intentionally misleading people about how economies and governments work. I'm also not particularly confident encouraging people to have their children raised by strangers is a good idea.
