Okay, I'll gladly accept charitable donations from any kind-hearted Republicans here.
Yes, I'm familiar with the charge that liberals want others to foot the bill, and don't want to give as much of their own money as Republicans are willing to do. That may well be true. (I know a few folks of whom this seems the case, anecdotally.) We could go back and forth on that forever, and that is precisely what I hoped not to do. (I admit, I asked for it with the sentence in my post that began "Not to bait anyone..." so I hereby withdraw that.)
I still think there is a significant problem, and I personally feel like I fall right through the woodwork in the current scheme of things. If we all agree that there is merit to the idea of all people in a society helping to shoulder at least some of the burden for the general good (and I take these responses to mean that yes, everyone agrees with that in principle), then what is the way forward?