Easy -- users often don't respond favorably about MAJOR spending categories that are absolutely required. For example -- there's big negative sentiment about healthcare and its costs, but I rarely hear favorable responses like "thank you the country for we have healthcare". Or "thank you military that we haven't got invaded yet" (we are all users of the military). That doesn't depend on the country/region.

"Users" are too short-sighted to invest in major spending categories. Only the countries who can reasonably push their population towards long-term investments still exist.