Having enough, many wish for more. This is considered beneficial government spending. Using their tax dollars for Social Security and Medicare for the elderly or welfare and Medicaid for the poor is considered wasteful and unnecessary government spending. To the contented class, the wealthy are hard-working people blessed by God that are deserving of their good fortune. The poor are lazy, shiftless, dependent upon handouts and contribute nothing to society.
Money given to the wealthy creates jobs.
Money provided to the poor saps their moral fiber. Americans are now working longer hours and producing more than at any time since World War II, but all the gains are going to their bosses. Writing in the Summer 1995 edition of The American Prospect , Edward N. Wolff states that according to data gathered in federal surveys, the wealthiest 20 percent in the U.S. received 99 percent of the total gains in the economy between 1983 and 1989. During that same period, the richest one percent picked up 62 percent of the new wealth that was created. From 1989 to 1992, that same group got 68 percent.