0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
. . . When candidates such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg laid out their plans for grand, transformative change in America via the federal government, they did so without hesitation or any sense of recent history. In this, they are of course joined by Donald Trump, who has presided over budgets and deficits that are historically high for peacetime.Between jabs about fundraisers in wine caves with chrystals and $900 bottle service, the Democrats mostly squabbled over some of the small stuff—whether all college loans should be forgiven or just 95 percent of them—while acting as if radically expanding the size, scope, and spending of government had never been tried . . . . . . At the same time, Donald Trump and his party are signing off on paid family leave for federal workers (in a defense bill, of all things), a policy that hurts gender equity in the workplace and was unthinkable to Republicans only a few years ago . . . . . . "Just as the 1960s forgot the failure of the 1930s, we today forget the failures of the 1960s," writes Shlaes. "For today, the contest between capitalism and socialism is on again." Progressive proposals "from redistribution via taxation to sudent debt relief to a universal basic income" are regaining popularity. Meanwhile, President Trump has ended the Republican Party's rhetoric of fiscal responsibility and limited government. If that rhetoric was never particularly convincing—surely we all can remember the disastrous George W. Bush presidency, when the government grew in practically every way possible—it at least kept alive a tradition that seems more relevant now than ever . . .. . . In a recent interview with me, [Shales] likened LBJ's Great Society to a domestic-policy version of his disastrous intervention in Vietnam, when the "best and the brightest" minds of American politics assured a quick and important victory. She also added that it wasn't just LBJ and Democrats who pushed the Great Society and Vietnam—Richard Nixon and other Republicans helped sustain and even expand their goals, programs, and costs. "May this book serve as a cautionary tale of lovable people who, despite themselves, hurt those they loved," writes Shlaes. "Nothing is new. It is just forgotten" . . .
Author
Topic: Here's the One Book All the Democratic Candidates (and President Trump) Should Read (Read 160 times)
