主题：得知近一半美国家庭不用交去年的所得税的感想 -- 海外俗人

difficult to get free lunch from Uncle Sam. Compared with 1980s, America, at both the federal and state levels, has cut down their welfare benefits.

I talked to old immigrants (not those high-tech wizard generation of new immigrants from Taiwan/Hk/China, etc). Their benefits package was amazingly good. But most would be cut or not available to newcomers.

California, in its golden years, had been very nice to poor Asian immigrants. After the 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 crises, I heard of lots of gov. cutbacks.

A looming fiscal crisis is going to hit all kinds of local governments.