From 1950 to 1980, Americans were indeed Losing Ground. Charles Murray’s book on social policy debunks welfare programs. The programs are the problem. It is not possible to design a wealth transfer program that will not produce net harm.
Mystery solved. I first heard about the deadly flu pandemic of 1918 in an obscure blues song from that era.
Americans define themselves as principled people of action.
While many Americans were hungry and destitute, FDR ordered the slaughter of six million pigs and the destruction of ten million acres of cotton. Public-sector jobs created by the New Deal displaced or destroyed private-sector jobs. World War II didn’t end the Great Depression; a return to free-market activity after the war did.
American liberty will never be reestablished so long as elites and masses alike look to the president to perform supernatural feats and therefore tolerate his virtually unlimited exercise of power. Until we can restore limited, constitutional government in this country, God save us from great presidents.
If you subscribe to wsj.com, they are starting a new forum today, kicked off by Brad DeLong and Arnold Kling (of the Cato Institute).
Otherwise, I will add, our hope is that, when public policies violate our rights to be secure in our persons and our property, public opinion will change upon the demonstration of the disastrous consequences of those policies, in terms, yes, of poor economic performance, but also in terms of political conflict and social upheaval.
In the 1920s Presidents Harding and Coolidge never got close to the poll favorites of Washington, Lincoln and FDR when ranked, because they killed fewer, taxed less, made their administrations almost invisible, and sought no wealth or glory.
There is not a living soul who is willing to call the Iraq war a success. At the end of the day, all that Bush will leave is debt, death, and disaster.
