Opinion
Liberalism is about more than just spending
Nov. 18, 2014Clay Olsen’s column, “Democrats mistake government spending for kind-heartedness,” was a conservative attempt to define liberalism as willy-nilly government handouts to the poor. He cites Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and declares it a failure without mentioning its success before former President Ronald Reagan gutted the program. He mentioned Medicare liabilities without mentioning that President Barack Obama and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan proposed to cut the same amount from the program. The big difference in the cuts is that Obama targets fraud on the supply side of Medicare, whereas Ryan proposed exclusively consumer-side cuts, which would increase the copay of every American.
