Greece doesn’t have the largest economy in the world. Their currency isn’t the Petrodollar like USD is. The world economy runs on USD. I don’t think you understand just how much power and freedom that affords us with regards to spending. Not your fault because it’s been hammered into us for decades by “fiscal conservatives.” But the actual reality is that we have far more control over these things than those people want you to think.

The only way spending on social programs could ever possibly tank the US economy is if billionaires and corporations purposely did so out of spite, and desire to return to the times when they could get away with being robber barons (AKA right now). And unfortunately, it would probably work.

That said, even if you don’t believe that Modern Monetary Theory is real (again, you should read about it from actual economists, not me), we could very easily take care of every person in this country, legal or not, if we even modestly reduced our “defense” budget, and properly taxed corporations and the uber-wealthy.