So I take it that you think it is a good thing that the government is taxing people to provide food to people...

Yes. Full stop.

I feel like this is a deliberately obtuse take. If you're going to try to argue a point, it's a lot healthier to make it in good faith. But, I'll bite anyway.

The infrastructure in the USA has been pretty heavily built around having motor vehicles to travel around, and of course housing is also a necessity. I'm absolutely happy with the idea of the government providing basic housing, transportation, and any other necessity you can name to every person, regardless of their income levels. People will still spend money on luxury food, housing, and transportation, but those who need those things will not suffer so much from their lack.

I don't think the country as a whole is ready to embrace the idea of taking care of people - you're clearly a paragon of that selfish mindset, and I hope one day your Scrooge-like opinions are an overwhelming minority.

I mean travel within cities. I live less than five minutes away from where I work by car, about twenty minutes if I don't take the highway. If I were to take a bus, it would be over ninety minutes each way, plus over two hours of waiting between the end of my shift and the bus to go home. That's not sustainable

You have to be trolling

I don't have a solution. I'm saying that it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend tax money on ensuring that people are able to get to where they need to go. An optimal scenario is mass transit, simply because of the environmental impact, but I think that's less realistic than subsidies for buying a basic car

I'm explaining why people need cars; I live as close to work as I can afford to. I'm not saying the bus route needs to be trailered to any individual; I'm doing fine, myself. My point was that public transit is ubiquitously poorly set up, and people need to be able to travel to work and to get groceries

It's not about whether people can afford these things themselves - it's about whether people need these things. I'd be much more in favor of a nationwide improvement in public transit, leavings cars as a luxury in the first place, but in either case, the overwhelming majority of the layout of cities in the US is such that motor transportation is necessary, not optional. That's the difference - what people need, versus what people simply want.