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History Lesson for Obama
Topic Started: Dec 13 2010, 05:49 AM (98 Views)
George K
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Finally
From Paul Krugman?

Really!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/social-insurance-history/?src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

Quote:
 
Hmm. Paul Rosenberg catches the president rewriting history — and, revealingly, doing so in a way that makes the case for timid, incremental action, while waving away the actual history of bold strokes.

Specifically, Obama said this:

"This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.

Under the criteria that you just set out, each of those were betrayals of some abstract ideal."


This is all wrong: both programs were huge from the start. From the beginning, Social Security applied to all private-sector workers, except those in agriculture, domestic service, or casual employment — and yes, those exceptions happened to exclude the majority of African-Americans. Still, it was by no means a small program that grew big. Medicare covered everyone 65 and older right from the beginning, although initially it only provided hospital insurance.

It is, as Rosenberg says, odd that Obama doesn’t know this history.


Clicky.



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brenda
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..............
He was busy with constitutional law! Come on, George, get with the program!
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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