Nice to read another freewrite from you Deacon! The thought of the amount of the enormity of our national debt (thanks for the visual) isn't a pretty one.
I had to use the WIC (Women, Infants, Children) assistance up through when my youngest was two. We should have signed up for food stamps at the time, it would have made what little we made go much further but, since we were careful with what we had, we only needed to use the WIC funds for a few years. With those we were able to purchase formula (once I was no longer able to breastfeed), cereal, milk, cheese and peanut butter for my girls. Plus, once a year the program gave us $30 in vouchers to use at the farmer's market. It is a wonderful program and I am grateful to have had the assistance when my family needed it.
Almost all of us need a safety net at some point in our lives, I have at one time or another looked to family, friends, my church, insurance and then even the inevitable help from Government assistance of one kind or another. Those, even the wealthy, who think that they can always get by on their own are just kidding themselves. We come into the world dependent and if we live long enough we will again become dependent on others. It is the in-between time that the healthy and wealty tend to get full of pride in self.