Exactly.    American the land of the privalaged.

But let me try this Hugh.    America at one time seemed to have plenty of money for public projects.   But at that time our entititlement spending was a much smaller percentage of our total federal budget.

Without specifics, let me throw out a hypothesis:   The federal goverment now puts more emphasis on aiding the individual based on personal circumstances, creating problems with funding for large public projects (ex. National Parks)  

Money for transportaion, education, military, emergency disaster funding, environmental protection all have the welfare of the general public in mind and each of us can reasonably expect to SEE the return.  That matters for people that give their tax money expecting a return for their tax investment that they can personally experience.   

It would be fun to see what we consider a public project vs individual entitlement.   *And I'm sure we'll have plenty of 'gray' areas.