Which benefits are you talking about?
All of them, and all other government spending aside. Oil accounted for half of their GDP and 95% of their exports. It was also about half of the governments revenue. They tried to prioritize welfare spending over other stuff, cutting the military by 34% for example to try and preserve some of their welfare, but they still made some cuts to welfare.
Ultimately they tried to use monetary inflation to help pay for stuff and that also effectively reduces welfare by driving up the prices of everything.
I understand the shortages are due to distribution issues and that a lot of the companies responsible for that job are privatized. In this thread you can see pictures of food being hoarded and torched by the opposition.
I don't know about torching food but hoarding food during shortages, or even just the fear of shortages, is pretty common behavior everywhere.
The problem with food shortages are a combination of the price controls the government imposed on food and the mismanagement of state owned food production. something like 70% of state owned companies were loosing money from what I've read. Which is fine if the government can cover costs. However when the oil prices fell it could cover all of the costs to operate anymore and production fell. Meanwhile price controls and import restrictions made it impossible to import food profitably leading to a black market.
The government eventually lifted some restrictions but now inflation has made it difficult to import goods.
As for distribution, maduro put the military in charge of oversight of distribution in the country, however the process was filled with corruption. The military intentionally marked up prices to make money and engaged in some of that hoarding you mentioned.
Some have speculated that he did this in part so that the military would be able to feed their families and would not do anything unfortunate like turn on him.
I think corruption is also a problem that touched on the production processes as well. I suspect the lack of economic development in production sectors and lack of profitability may well have had as much to do with corruption skimming off the top as with simple mismanagement.
even if Maduro's base is suffering, they'd still prefer to keep the government over any other party amongst the opposition.
Why? Most people in venezuela, as with anywhere else, are not ideological. I don't see why it should be expected that not even a portion of these people would turn on the government when their needs aren't met.
According to this source, only 33 percent of Venezuelans want to replace the current government.
I had to use google translate, so what I'm reading may not be exactly what it's saying, but from what I can tell the only 33% figure is on a question asking if people thought the priorities of a dialogue between the opposition and the government should be economic problems, the recall, or an amnesty law.
61% thought that economic problems should be the priority and 33% thought the recall should be. Which from my reading doesn't necessarily mean that the 61% oppose the recall. Just that they, rather sensibly, would like to deal with the rather pressing problem of shortages and economic crisis first over the recall vote.
Something like 85% of respondents seem to support some sort of dialogue between the government and opposition. With 14% ish opposed. which tells me that 14% of the population is ideologically committed to one side or another and 85% of people just want things to improve.
Those are just my interpretations of the polls though and like I said I may be misreading the questions by relying on google translate.
Other polls seem to show broad support for a recall and I found this article rather telling.
Caracas, Venezuela – A dozen prominent Chavistas have joined the opposition’s call for a vote to recall President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, adding yet another layer to the complex political and financial crisis ripping the country apart.
The group, which includes former lawmakers and three ministers or secretaries under Hugo Chavez’s presidency, wrote an open letter to the National Electoral Board Monday saying the people of Venezuela should be able to express its will via a referendum.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/07/19/venezuela-former-chavez-allies-join-opposition-push-to-recall-president-maduro.htmlWhich would lend some support to my belief that Maduro's actions are a part of the problem if even prominent allies of Chavez think he should go. Personally I think the country could have avoided a lot of grief is someone else had taken up Chavez's mantel.
America is largely responsible for the crisis and has a very recent history of being involved in the ousting of the previous leader of the country, so there no "misdirected anger", just you as usual ignoring or apologizing for your government's many crimes, including its attempt for regime change in Venezuela once more. Here you can read about US plans of sabotage in Venezuela, which were leaked from Clinton's emails: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/C ... -0041.html
I honestly disagree that the root of this problem is american. Poor choices were made by the government at several key points in this crisis and before it that led them down this road. The united states and China are just waiting around to take advantage of the situation.
My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.