Welfare for the rich had an early beginning. Adam Smith wrote his concern about it in Wealth of Nations in the 18th century. Signers of our Declaration of Independence insisted that government provide advantages to the wealthy as a condition of agreement.
The first welfare for the rich initiative in the United States was keeping slavery legal. Who benefited from slavery? Certainly, ordinary whites did not. Why would a plantation owner hire a white man when government gave him a right to enslave Africans?
Every decade since has included one or more laws allowing the wealthy an economic advantage over everyone else.
Americans today would be better off paying a direct tribute to the banking industry than to face the eventual consequences of having the financial markets rigged in their favor.