When Ronald Reagan spoke the words Sarah Palin quoted about the risk of losing freedom, the threat to freedom he was warning against was … Medicare.
Jonathan Chait on TNR’s The Plank::
Yes, it turns out that Ronald Reagan said what Sarah Palin quoted him as saying:
And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
(All right, she added “women.” Excusable.)
So what was it that Reagan wanted everyone to do so as not to have to tell his grandchildren about lost freedom? Why, defeat Medicare.
Wingnuts. The Republican party is still a wholly-owned-and-operated subsidiary of its wingnuts.
If I were Obama, I think I’d hit this hard.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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