The hallmark of futile negotiations is that each side regards [an] overarching reality as a problem for the people on the other side of the table, rather than one for everyone at the table.

The United States, with the greatest ability and the weakest desire to finance a welfare state, winds up in the middle of the pack in terms of the absolute value of the resources devoted to it. By 2003...America's per capita Public Expenditures were greater than those in Japan, Spain, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, while lower than those in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark and Sweden.