# If the GOP could roll back the New Deal or Great Society **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 8, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358 "2011-07-08T22:42:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/21 "2011-07-10T13:25:41Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > You mean guilted into it in 1970? > > Kevin Phillips was a strategist for Nixon. The quote is from the New York Times. But if I’m reading that quote right, Republicans are encouraging southern racists to be Republicans by ENFORCING the rights of blacks to vote? Wouldn’t they get more votes if they DIDN’T enforce the rules? If you want to ask why Southern Whites joined the GOP pretty much after the racial issues were decided, it has a lot more to do with the fact the Democrats embraced the McGovern platform of “Abortion, Acid and Amnesty”\* in 1972. Do you think that there are all that many Southerners who care about the racial issues today? (\* This term describing how the radicals took over the Democrat Party was coined by none other than Hubert Humphrey.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/22 "2011-07-10T15:48:18Z")
> [@](#): > > What we should do is replace “welfare” with “workfare”. If the private sector can’t find a useful function for you, the government will, even it it’s picking up trash in the street or cleaning graffitti off walls. I thought you were opposed to government jobs, and that they didn’t really count? ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/23 "2011-07-10T15:54:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I thought you were opposed to government jobs, and that they didn’t really count? Missing my point entirely. I wouldn’t expect these people to do anything critical. I would expect them to get an object lesson in the fact that they need to work for their existence. If you are going to pay them money anyway, might as well make them work for it, and maybe show them the error of their ways. You are correct, though, that if the government ran such a thing, they would find a way to screw it up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/24 "2011-07-10T18:09:17Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > What we should do is replace “welfare” with “workfare”. Weren’t the Clinton reforms supposed to do that? ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/25 "2011-07-10T19:31:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cite? Agricultural subsidies, oil depletion allowance, lower capital gains tax rates, FEMA, ethanol subsidies. It goes on and on. I’m not sure why conservatives are always sucking off the public teat. ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/26 "2011-07-11T20:18:52Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > Now, on to the original point. Obviously the problem with the crowning acheivements of these programs- Social Security and Medicare- is that they are unsustainable. They are going broke, and we can’t maintain them without massive tax increases, or without cutting them back. > > More pointedly, the real problem with these programs is that they are “entitlements”. The very notion is the problem. You are “entitled” to these things. You don’t necessarily have to work for them, we are just giving them to you because you are ‘entitled’ to them. > > Now back in the oldy days, when you gave someone unfortunate a hand up (which you should do), it was clearly understood and they had a word for it. It was called “Charity”. We help you out this time, but it’s incumbant on you to try to better your lot in life. > > Today. Nope. It’s an entitlement. The world owes you. Especially if you belong to a group where they did something nasty to your ancestors and we can play on liberal white guilt. > > What we should do is replace “welfare” with “workfare”. If the private sector can’t find a useful function for you, the government will, even it it’s picking up trash in the street or cleaning graffitti off walls. Gah, it’s like you know just enough to be astoundingly ignorant. The word “entitlement” just means that you have the legal right to the benefit if you meet the eligibility requirements specified in the law when it was passed. It’s not because welfare queens have a sense of entitlement and get to buy Cadillacs with your hard-earned tax money. Social Security and Medicare are not even entitlement programs; I don’t know about you, but I’ve been paying into them my whole working life. They’re much more like insurance programs. It doesn’t take a whole lot of intelligence to recognize the benefit of insurance, and having as wide a pool as possible. Especially when there’s nobody About charity: it would be great if there were enough upstanding citizens like you who actually gave to charity, but the US has one of the lowest charitable giving rates, and too much of it has strings attached, like being “deserving” according to some Puritanical standard. I would almost be inclined to believe Republicans who talk like you if they ever made any effort to improve the efficiency of welfare or intelligently enforce some standard to prevent cheaters, but mostly you just want to blow the whole thing up and see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358/27 "2011-07-12T00:50:29Z")
> [@J\_Cubed](#): > > Gah, it’s like you know just enough to be astoundingly ignorant. The word “entitlement” just means that you have the legal right to the benefit if you meet the eligibility requirements specified in the law when it was passed. It’s not because welfare queens have a sense of entitlement and get to buy Cadillacs with your hard-earned tax money. . Sure seems like it to me. . > [@](#): > > Social Security and Medicare are not even entitlement programs; I don’t know about you, but I’ve been paying into them my whole working life. They’re much more like insurance programs. It doesn’t take a whole lot of intelligence to recognize the benefit of insurance, and having as wide a pool as possible. Especially when there’s nobody . Except those programs are now broke, and we have to risk default to continue paying for them. The thing is, they were ponzi schemes. You were paying into them, but they immediately gave that money to other people who more often than not, didn’t pay as much in. It wasn’t like there was a nice big account with your name like that. And like all Ponzi schemes, eventually, someone ends up holding the bag. . > [@](#): > > About charity: it would be great if there were enough upstanding citizens like you who actually gave to charity, but the US has one of the lowest charitable giving rates, and too much of it has strings attached, like being “deserving” according to some Puritanical standard. . You mean not being on drugs, not indiscriminately breeding, not expecting the world to owe you a living. Man, how medieval. > [@](#): > > I would almost be inclined to believe Republicans who talk like you if they ever made any effort to improve the efficiency of welfare or intelligently enforce some standard to prevent cheaters, but mostly you just want to blow the whole thing up and see what happens. Yeah, sometimes you got to knock down a rotting building to put up something worthwhile. The first and foremost thing we need to get rid of is the mentality that “the world owes you”. If you get something, it is because other people worked hard for it and are generously sharing some of it, and it’s incumbant upon you to better yourself. I’ve had some terrible setbacks in my life. (Both of my parents died when I was 19). There was never a point where I said, “Well, gosh, gee, poor me, where’s my gummit check?” Yeah, I took advantage of things, but I gave back. Served a total of 11 years in the military. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-gop-could-roll-back-the-new-deal-or-great-society/588358.md?page=1)