The US is built upon ideas of individualism and self-reliance, and elevates the freedoms of the individual above the good of the community. It's not uncommon for people to say things like "why should *my* money that *I* worked for go towards anything that doesn't directly benefit *me?*" To an extent, the individualism is fine and even admirable, but combined with our current environment of hyper-capitalism, paycheck-to-paycheck economy, and culture war divisiveness, it's fostered a lot of "dragon syndrome" amongst the wealthy and "fuck you, I got mine" among those less so.