Obama’s Welfare State Needs Republican Guardians
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Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- For most of the past century, theU.S. and continental Europe have followed different paths.Social Democrats often ran European governments, which typicallytaxed and spent a greater share of their national incomes onsocial programs, such as public health care. The U.S. has beenfar more conservative.
Our last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, accepted thisfact, and won re-election as the triangulator who declared that“the era of big government is over.” But President Barack Obamawas re-elected on an aggressively progressive program. Is theU.S. finally converging toward the European model?