Why people don't support Government programs

Mark Thoma discussing why people who are beneficiaries of government programs don't consider themselves as such, in his post Medicare Recipient Against Handouts:

Perhaps it would help a little if they realized that they received these benefits, but I don't think that's the main source of opposition to government programs. People believe they paid for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They put in contributions each month, the government saves that money somewhere, somehow, and when they use these programs they aren't consuming from "government," they are consuming their own contributions.

Thus, I believe the people answering this question are actually answering whether they've consumed services they didn't pay for in one way or another. The answers reflect the fact that most people believe that anything they get out of the system is far less than what they put into it (though in many cases that isn't actually true).

So it's true that people want the budget cut, but only the parts where people are forced to pay for "underserving" recipients of these government services. The feeling is that they get up every day and do what's needed to support themselves and their families. They go each day to jobs they hate, hate, hate, hate with a passion because that's how life is, and they don't appreciate seeing their hard-earned money taken away and given to people who don't even try, people who could work if they wanted to, but rely on the system instead.

Now, I happen to think that is a very wrong view of the circumstances of the typical aid recipient, but true or not I do think it is the source of the opposition to many social programs. People don't object to Social Security and Medicare because they believe they paid for these programs in full, or close to it. Same for disability, food stamps, and other programs. They paid into these programs for years, just like medical insurance, and now it's their turn to consume some of the funds they put in. They won't object to that even if you point it out to them, it's the people who consume without contributing that raise their ire and cause objections to these programs. It's the "handouts" that are the problem.