Nichole honey, I think those policies were not as much about expanding the underclass (though they have had that result) as shrinking the middle class (you know, that class that everyone in the good old USA belongs to, even people I know who make $150K a year swear up and down that they are 'middle class') which held too much political power.
What some might say, is that where in other places you are born to that - or to the manor - the traditional American myth is that you choose and work to become what you end up being. That anyone can 'pick themselves up by their bootstraps' and such.
And, you have to add in the factor that class is often about more than money - which is kinda a very rare American deal. So that people I know, and on occasions have been one of, have people who make a lot more money tell us they 'envy our lives.' But those lives are lived out of choice, rather than necessity. (That and often its because they think they know what we do, rather than what we really do, but even then...)
And I think the 'having one parent stay at home with the kids deal' is also treated differently, as anyone who has ever raised kids will tell you that its a job too. Which, unless you are Nadya Suleman is also taken to be something that you do for a while, but not forever.
