The Fate Of The Safety Net

Relative to the issue above, I wonder if there's evidence that tax-and-transfer programs really have become politically unsustainable in a neoliberal era? There are probably lots of different ways you could look at this issue, but at a minimum this paper from Marianne Bitler and Hilary Hoynes (PDF) on what actually happened after welfare reform suggests that there actually hasn't been much change in total fiscal commitment:

Another way of looking at this is internationally. According to Lane Kenworthy, market incomes for the poor have stagnated across the developed world, but in some countries transfer payments have risen and living standards increased:

This seems very sad to me. Poor Americans could enjoy substantially higher living standards if we did more to enact transfer payments that ensure that the fruits of economic growth will be broadly shared. In some countries, a lot of that happened, and in other countries very little of it did.