“It seems reasonable to think … that the more [social] programs people use, the more they might value the government that supplies them. But this is not what she found. Relying on government doesn’t make people more likely to value government, or make them feel more strongly that government is responsive to them. Their feelings about government don’t appear connected to their own direct experience of it. But those feelings are shaped by opinions about other people’s reliance on government aid.” NYT Upshot: Americans have increasingly come to dislike government, even as they have relied more on various forms of government assistance.