It was Johnson who brought us the Welfare and Food Stamp programs on the federal government. He did anything to get votes whether it was constitutional or not.
You also once could get 100% of your tithes taken off on your taxes. You can't anymore. In 1960 churches and charities took care of the poor, not the feds. Sometimes states stepped in if the poor had no other means.
I also think the feds should not pay farmers NOT to grow things, but allow them to grow them and use the money to buy up all the excess food to use as commodities and food for the military. Get rid of the food stamp program. That way the US would always have a back up food supply that we may need later this year because of high fertilizer prices and the Russia-Ukraine war slowing down wheat and corn production. We no longer produce as much wheat, as we are growing 40% of our corn for ethynol to put in gas.
The government since the 1960's has created more problems than they have solved. We have high health care insurance because the Free Trade Agreements sucked our factories overseas and those factories provided health care for their workers and families. With the loss of factories, it shrunk the middle class. The government didn't get rid of the poor, but perpetuated a permanent poor class with welfare, food stamps, government housing, section 8 housing, etc. Got rid of their incentives to get an education and do better.
The government got us in many wars and didn't win them. Just fought and fought, then withdrew. Kind of stupid. Starting with Vietnam. We did stop the communists from taking South Korea.
We once had a law that all political viewpoints on TV and Radio had to have an opposing viewpoint given to be fair. This was done away with in 1987. The result was the right got talk radio and the left got all the TV and newspapers. The country has then been going downhill as most people watch TV but don't listen to talk radio during the day.
The government got off the gold standard in 1912 by floating money. The result was the roaring 20's followed by the Great Depression, and then inflation ever since. In 1800 1 ounce of gold or $20 could buy you two suits of clothes. In 1900, the same 1 ounce of gold or $20 could still buy you two suits of clothes. In 2000 1 ounce of gold could still buy you two suits of clothes, but $20 had depreciated over 100 years to barely buy you two pairs of dress socks. A lot of economic ups and downs getting off the gold standard. Yes, you had economic problems in the 1800's but they were over fairly quickly and not as long term as today.
