This is an article by Bill O’Reilly. You can see it here.
Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1962, America was a far different place from what it is today. President John Kennedy was presiding over Camelot, and despite fouling up the invasion of Cuba, his approval rating hovered at around 80 percent. Unemployment was 5.2 percent with the average family income at $6,000 a year.
Most Americans did not have much money but made do. Millions bought Elvis Presley’s record “Return to Sender” and went to see “Lawrence of Arabia” in movie theaters. At home, “Wagon Train” was the top TV show.
Years later, the film “American Graffiti” featured the ad campaign “Where were you in ’62?” Well, I was on Long Island, hanging around. During the day, we swam at the Levittown pool and played stickball in the street, and in August, my father took us to a lake in Vermont. Also, we went to Jones Beach and baked in the sun without block while secondhand cigarette smoke engulfed us on the blanket.
My folks had little disposable income, certainly not enough for air conditioning or a color television set. But again, there was little whining in my working-class neighborhood. We had fun with what was available. Most everybody worked. Nobody was on welfare.
In fact, just 6 percent of Americans received welfare payments in 1962. Now that number is 35 percent. More than 100 million of us are getting money from the government, and that does not count Social Security and Medicare, programs workers pay into. This is a profound change in the American tradition.
Also, we now have close to nine million workers collecting federal disability checks. In 2001, that number was about five million. Here’s my question: Is the workplace that much more hazardous than it was 11 years ago? Is our health that much worse?
The answer is no. What we are seeing is the rise of the Nanny State.
Self-reliance and ambition made the United States the most powerful nation on Earth. But that ethic is now eroding fast. Instead, many Americans are looking to game the system, and the philosophy of “where’s mine” has taken deep root. About half of American workers pay no federal income tax, leaving the burden to be shouldered by the achievers. As The Edward Winter Group once sang: “Come on and take a free ride. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!”
Presiding over and joyously encouraging this societal shift is the purveyor of social justice President Barack Obama. His entire campaign is now built around making the rich “pay their fair share.” And where will that money go? To those in need, of course. And those legions are growing larger every single day.
Fair-minded people do not begrudge a safety net for Americans who, through no fault of their own, need help. A compassionate society provides for those battered by life. But what is happening in this country is far beyond a helping hand. We are creating a dual society. In one corner: Americans who work hard to succeed. In the other corner: folks who want what you have.
And the second corner is the growth industry.
1962 seems like Paradise Lost in some respects, but it wasn’t all the conservative dream:
In 1962, the top federal tax bracket was 91% for income over $200,000, vs. 35% today for income over $379,000. Maybe that’s part of the problem now — the wealthy are not taxed enough.
Black people could be refused service at restaurants, refused entry into colleges, and legally prevented from moving into neighborhoods.
In 1962 the poverty rate for families was 17%. In 2010 it was under 12%.
The violent crime rate is about triple what it was in 1962, but in 1962 it was rising, while it has been steadily falling since 1990. So we are doing something right to be bringing the rate down.
In 1962 I would not have been able to marry my wife, as inter-racial marriages were against the law in Arizona.
Homosexual relations in private, between consenting adults, were illegal in many states in 1962, and heavily prosecuted.
Sure, some things were better in 1962, but I don’t think I want to go back.
Comment by Daryl — Thursday August 2, 2012 @ 11:13 am
Why would it have to be the “conservative dream”? You bring up things that O’Reilly never mentioned. Why would you do that if not to create a strawman?
The things he pointed out are quite true. There are lots of indicators that we have become much more dependent on the largess of the government rather than on ourselves.
Blacks are much more dependent on the government and their unemployment rate shows that.
You suggest the wealthy are not taxed enough. I would suggest that the government spends too much. The government is the only entity that seems to be able to just continue to increase spending while their income goes down. They don’t even care if they they have the money. That’s not just Democrats, Republicans are guilty of the same problem.
You stated the poverty rate was under 12% in 2010. Perhaps you should have looked at what it is now to see just what a failure Obama has been. The current poverty rate is roughly 15.7% now. So yes it was at 12% in 2010 but just 2 short years later it’s at the highest it’s been since 1965.
The clear truth is Obama and his friends in congress have taken this country toward bankruptcy and if you aren’t able to understand and accept that fact I can’t help you.
Comment by Don — Thursday August 2, 2012 @ 1:03 pm
I said “conservative dream” for two reasons: I consider Bill O’Reilly to be a conservative, and I was responding to his praise of 1962. Secondly, I was pointing out that the high tax rate of the wealthy is certainly today not what conservatives are dreaming of. But you’re right, I probably should have left the adjective out.
I wasn’t directly responding to the points that O’Reilly was making; I brought up different items as a contrast. He seemed to be making the case that in 1962 the US was much better than it is now. I was just stating counter examples of how in some ways it is better now.
Comments like “… if you aren’t able to understand and accept that fact I can’t help you.” make me not want to comment on your blog. Opinions different from yours don’t seem welcome here.
Comment by Daryl — Thursday August 2, 2012 @ 3:43 pm
Opinions that go against logic befuddle me. It’s not that they aren’t welcome it’s that they aren’t understood. I cannot understand how someone can look at what Obama has done and not be unhappy with him unless of course they are even farther to the left than he is. Are you?
Comment by Don — Thursday August 2, 2012 @ 5:10 pm
I’m unhappy with many things that Obama has done, as I’ve expressed before. Failure to close Guantanamo, “executive privilege”, extending the Patriot Act, many more. I don’t like his negative, out-of-context mis-quote ads against Romney (and vice-versa, of course).
Regarding the economy, however, my main complaint is that he didn’t go far enough, and much of that was because of the logjam in Congress. Many top economists believe the stimulus was too small. They think it should have been larger, and followed by another. They think that the deficit, while a problem that needs to be solved, is insignificant next to the most important problem, jobs. They believe that the best way to kick-start the economy is to pour government money into jobs programs. I know this may sound “illogical”, but so does relativity. I leave it up to the experts to debate.
There are economists on the other side, too, well credentialed economists who think that the best thing to do now is balance the budget, cut spending and lower taxes, especially for small business owners. They may be right. I don’t second guess the experts, though I have my own opinion.
Economists in the first camp believe that Romney’s financial plans are a return to the Bush economy, and fear that it will drive us deeper into stagflation/recession. They may be right. Economists in the second camp believe that another stimulus, and the ACA will push the deficit so deep that the country will never dig out. They may be right too. I lean towards the first camp, but I don’t know, and people who disagree with me are not stupid, blind or irrational. The fact that I don’t understand how they may have reached their position doesn’t mean they didn’t follow a reasonable path of logic, based probably on a different set of assumptions, goals and values.
Comment by Daryl — Friday August 3, 2012 @ 10:18 pm
A few weeks ago I was watching O’Reilly and he had on Alan Colmes. At some point in the conversation Colmes made the statement that people on welfare actually returned more than a dollar for every dollar they were given.
With this logic we need to put EVERYONE on welfare.
This is similar to the idea that we just need to increase the stimulus to improve the economy. The stimulus was a failure and I can’t believe people really think it just needed to be larger.
This is the kind of convoluted logic that makes me really wonder about liberals and their ability to understand simple math. The thing they seem to not be able to understand is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
If we were to raise taxes on the rich to where Obama has said he wants to we would get enough extra money to run the government for 8 days. EIGHT DAYS!
At some point you have to understand that our government spends too much and spending more just gets you deeper into the hole they are digging.
Comment by Don — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 7:29 am
I don’t know who Alan Colmes is. Is he an economist? Sociologist? Whoever he is, he doesn’t speak for me.
You may not be able to believe that “people really think it just needed to be larger”, but some people do, many economists do, including Nobel prize winning economists (I know, I know, Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize tarnishes the name “Nobel”).
Here are some interesting graphs (I hope these all display!):
Notice how things start improving right around the time the stimulus begins, but then level out as the stimulus tapers off. These graphs don’t prove that the stimulus was responsible — maybe it was a coincidence. There are other graphs that can be interpreted as showing that the stimulus didn’t work. For example:
But I don’t think you can say that it is a fact that the stimulus failed or made the economy worse. You can say there is evidence for both sides. You can say that it is controversial. You can say “I don’t understand how it could have made the economy better, and I haven’t seen evidence for it”. I don’t understand all the “convoluted logic”, but I don’t have a PhD in Economics. Those that do are on both sides of the issue.
The issue to me is less about the details of this particular topic, than it is about different sides refusing to consider another perspective, painting those who believe differently with condescending terms.
I enjoy a civil debate, where each side is willing to learn from the other, but I hate it when it descends into insults.
Comment by Daryl — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 7:18 pm
Well yes I do actually believe that some people think it needed to be bigger I just think they are not using simple logic in their thought process.
Comment by Don — Sunday August 5, 2012 @ 12:36 pm