Can you back that up? I know people who were in poverty and very much support many of those programs as lifesavers. It's wealthier people, who have no experience of them, who I see disparaging them.

Also, the criticism is cliche - I haven't seen much evidence of it. While nothing is perfect, the civil service in most advanced countries, including the US, are not patronage jobs; they are protected from such hiring and firing corruption. I know civil servants and they did not get the job through patronage and take their public service and professionalism very seriously. It's very easy to smear all those people in a few words.

That's somewhat true as a description of the average government programme, but it's far more true as a description of the average 503c.