Thinking about the disappointing field of Republican candidates this year, one might ask what has happened to the Grand Old Party. Back in 1964, leading Republicans were way better – with respect to style and substance. During the Goldwater campaign, Ronald Reagan delivered the great speech “A Time for Choosing”:
No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income.
We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now, do a little arithmetic and you’ll find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those nine million poor families, we’d be able to give each family $4’600 a year. And this added to their current income should eliminate poverty.
Swiss Economist 