> the free stuff started to be delivered a couple of years after that when FDR took office (and many howled in protest).

Yes, and it got locked into the system because mass immigration changed the ideological composition of the country. Our current massive peacetime deficits dates back to Reagan’s compromise to win over Catholics and white ethnics (those were the “Reagan democrats”). Catholics had voted as a bloc for democrats for the better part of a century (JFK won 80% of their vote). Reagan this pivoted to tax cuts, social conservatism and anti-communism, which could unify catholics, evangelical whites, and much of the old Anglo and German GOP. But he could never push meaningful spending cuts because it would blow up the coalition.