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I don’t know that I’d count Medicare since it’s not for the poor, it’s for people over 65 regardless of income. Social security also goes to everyone regardless of income. Calling public schools a welfare program disproportionately allocated to the poor seems like a stretch too.

Medicaid makes sense though, which is apparently about 10% of the federal budget.

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> Calling public schools a welfare program disproportionately allocated to the poor seems like a stretch too.

It's not he's saying. He's saying that public schools should be considered part of the "welfare program". Which they probably should since public schools, like social security, are program that benefit society as a whole, which you can (or cannot) use depending on your personal situation.

Someone else notes that those program tend, on average, to mostly benefit poor people - which they probably should. But it's not systematic.

So I don't really see any taxonomy issues here.

Medicare requires having paid into it for at least 10 years, and I believe there is some convoluted means testing going on with all the different “Parts” of Medicare and how much one’s premiums and benefits are.

Social security is similar, see my other comment.

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