Political Quotes

“``socialism,'' it is a label we hear a lot. It has been around a while--a long time--but in American politics, it is kind of applied in an unusual way. The notion that every American would pay into an insurance fund so that everyone who retired could live in basic dignity--we called it Social Security as Democrats; the Republicans called it socialism. Do they want to remove Social Security as a socialist program? I don't know. I listened carefully as the Republican leader started talking about the weaknesses of the Democratic philosophy. And then, in the 1960s, Lyndon Baines Johnson looked around America and saw a new class of impoverished Americans growing by the day. They were our parents and grandparents. And he decided one of their biggest problems was paying for their medical expenses and their prescription drugs eventually. So he proposed a Federal program called Medicare for everyone who reached the age of 65 in America, regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Boy, think about that. The critics called that socialism--the notion that we would help everybody, that we would collect money during their work experience and then take care of our parents and grandparents so they could live longer, more independently. Socialism. Now, we are discussing--and we are at an early stage--changing that Medicare Program to extend its benefits to include fundamental and basic things that have been sitting there for decades waiting to be addressed.…”