Some people have a hard time differentiating between voluntary associations: a church is a group of people who have come together to form a church, and a country (in the American model) is a group of people who have come together to form a country. Since a church can (and should) collectively perform acts of charity, they see no reason a country cannot do the same.
This is a categorical mistake. Churches exist to express love; governments exist to express political power. Chairman Mao famously said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Love is not coercive. Therefore, acts of charity (love) cannot be performed by government. The same act performed by both church and state cannot not have the same moral effect: the loving act is voluntary, and the official act is an act of force.
Not all liberals are lazy and greedy jerks who want accolades for acts of charity performed by other people. Some liberals are merely kindhearted but confused.
The sort of Christians who always vote Democrat are very fond of St. John Chrysostom's exhortation toward charity on the part of the rich in which he called the goods of the rich "theft from the poor." They either ignore or willfully bury the critique the Golden-mouth gave of state sponsored wealth redistribution:
“Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again.Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first—and then they will joyfully share their wealth.”
-– St. John Chrysostom on the poor from On Living Simply XLIII