I think the difference is that Rome had soo much excess, that they had the luxury of giving free bread. And it was more about redirecting spending elsewhere than it was about free bread. The more money people had in their pockets, the more they could do commerce in other areas. Since Rome essentially ruled all the places where grain came from, it was actually quite cheap. It's like if we conquered Saudi Arabia then had them send oil to us at half the price. So it wasn't soo much about charity, but rather, about redirecting funds in the economy....much like how lowering taxes puts more money in peoples pockets. Because Rome really needed to focus on bolstering the overall economy more than it needed to focus on taxes...and letting "big bread" get too big, meant too much money being devoted to one segment of the economy, which overall doesn't bolster the economy because they already had bread locked down due to massive grain shipments. In effect, they had more bread than they knew what to do with, and stored grain can only last soo long. So they stood to lose more in the long run if prices got too high and demand dipped or demand dipped because of high prices and prices got too low.

The difference here is that the US has been long since pillaged for the last half century and we're only spending with debt money. Everyone in America would have to work without pay or food for years in order to pay off that debt. We might have the luxury to be more giving if we didn't already have tens of trillions of dollars worth of wealth pillaged from us. Rome wasn't sending billions of dollars off to foreign countries to be just wasted. The US has already given too much and literally has long since had no more to give.

I think the difference is that Rome had soo much excess, that they had the luxury of giving free bread. And it was more about redirecting spending elsewhere than it was about free bread. The more money people had in their pockets, the more they could do commerce in other areas. Since Rome essentially ruled all the places where grain came from, it was actually quite cheap. It's like if we conquered Saudi Arabia then had them send oil to us at half the price. So it wasn't soo much about charity, but rather, about redirecting funds in the economy....much like how lowering taxes puts more money in peoples pockets. Because Rome really needed to focus on bolstering the overall economy more than it needed to focus on taxes...and letting "big bread" get too big, meant too much money being devoted to one segment of the economy, which overall doesn't bolster the economy because they already had bread locked down due to massive grain shipments. In effect, they had more bread than they knew what to do with, and stored grain can only last soo long. So they stood to lose more in the long run if prices got too high and demand dipped or demand dipped because of high prices and prices got too low.

The difference here is that the US has been long since pillaged for the last half century and we're only spending with debt money. Everyone in America would have to work without pay or food for years in order to pay off that debt. We might have the luxury to be more giving if we didn't already have tens of trillions of dollars worth of wealth pillaged from us.