This Is Why People Hate the Government
About this episode
Lowrey's core argument is that government bureaucracy imposes a 'time tax' — time-consuming, often humiliating paperwork and rules that fall hardest on the poor and middle class. Means-tested programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF are designed to punish, humiliate, and control recipients rather than deliver aid efficiently. The 1980s theory of 'ordeal mechanisms' — making benefits hard to get to screen out the undeserving — mostly just kicks eligible people off, she argues, citing Michigan's infamous 18,000-word benefits form. Welfare politics have long been racialized, and the 2026 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' cut SNAP while imposing the first-ever national Medicaid work requirements on about 25 million people. Tax filing could be pre-filled as in other countries, but the IRS's Direct File pilot was killed, and Republicans prefer taxes to stay painful. Her solutions: simpler, faster, fairer programs; universal services like the Postal Service are beloved because everyone uses them.