I site the following item of interest, from Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin from a speech delivered in January (note sentence in bold):

America today is not as far from the tipping point as we might think. While exact and precise measures cannot be made, there are estimates that in 2004, 20 percent of households in the US were receiving about 75 percent of their income from the federal government, and that another 20 percent of households were receiving nearly 40 percent. All in all, about 60 percent of American households were receiving more government benefits and services, measured in dollars, than they were paying back in taxes. It has also been estimated that President Obama’s first budget alone raises this level of “net dependency” to 70 percent.

pdb