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Ihe soviet Union, founded in violent revolution in 1917, swiftly took control of agriculture, business, culture, entertainment, medicine, press, etc., planning everything centrally. The ultimate in the “government know best” school, it recently collapsed, leaving a basket-case economy, people with few savings and little initiative, and the worst pollution on earth.
• Sweden moved steadily toward socialism, as government took more and more in taxes, providing more services, leaving citizens fewer choices. Recently that trend was reversed. Swedes, eager for more choice and less tax, voted the socialists out. The benevolent and smothering hand of government, even in democratic Sweden, carried too high a price. Humans are not ants or bees.
With foreign examples clear, what of America’s experience with non-political problem solving by government?
• Take welfare. Since President Johnson’s Great Society in 1965, the U.S. has spent $3.5 trillion on welfare. That equals 85 percent of the current national debt! For what? With federal bureaucrats in charge, there are more people on welfare for longer periods; an enormous new bureaucracy consumes much of the money. Everyone is worse off.
• Take education. Ross Perot said recently that our education system, the best in the world in the early 1960s, is now the worst among in
89.6%