Perhaps the argument of your critics is not so much a fiscal argument as a "moral" argument along the following lines. Using welfare is a moral failing / sin, regardless of the specific amount, and if one group of households has a higher fraction using welfare than others, they are the bigger sinners. Even if you somehow built a wall around the welfare state completely, the fact that they are sinners in their heart doesn't change; their moral unworthiness just gets hidden because they are denied the opportunity to sin.
To be clear, I don't agree with this argument. I think it definitely *isn't* wrong to use a welfare program if you've contributed to it through taxation, *at least* up to the amount that you paid for it in taxes, and plausibly even up to the point that you would be entitled to if the amounts you paid forcibly through taxes had been used for premiums in a private insurance scheme offering the same protections (such as unemployment insurance).
But I think the "welfare use = sin" does capture some element of the morality play implicit in some of the immigration / welfare critiques.
Perhaps the argument of your critics is not so much a fiscal argument as a "moral" argument along the following lines. Using welfare is a moral failing / sin, regardless of the specific amount, and if one group of households has a higher fraction using welfare than others, they are the bigger sinners. Even if you somehow built a wall around the welfare state completely, the fact that they are sinners in their heart doesn't change; their moral unworthiness just gets hidden because they are denied the opportunity to sin.
To be clear, I don't agree with this argument. I think it definitely *isn't* wrong to use a welfare program if you've contributed to it through taxation, *at least* up to the amount that you paid for it in taxes, and plausibly even up to the point that you would be entitled to if the amounts you paid forcibly through taxes had been used for premiums in a private insurance scheme offering the same protections (such as unemployment insurance).
But I think the "welfare use = sin" does capture some element of the morality play implicit in some of the immigration / welfare critiques.
Red states are more likely to have people on welfare