[okie01]

For anybody who's wondering, Paul Johnson is the foremost historian of his era. Though an Englishman, he understands America in the same way that Alexis de Tocqueville did.

His opinion counts for something.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Though an Englishman, he understands America in the same way that Alexis de Tocqueville did."

That's high praise for the man. I'm currently re-reading de Tocqueville's books and continue to be astounded at the depths he sounded about the US culture and goverment.

Based on your comment, I'll have to give Johnson's work a look. I tend to avoid modern historians, because most of them are out and out Marxists.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The only area, as presented in this article, in which I question him is his statement that the era of big government as the solution to all ills started in the sixties with the Kennedys. I see it as starting in the thirties with FDR. He was responsible for the graduated income tax, social security, and all the New Deal government make-work programs. LBJ was more of the big government guy than Kennedy.

However, Johnson’s remark was more along the lines of a federal budget deficit as the driving force behind this and I don’t know, and am too lazy to research, the deficits under FDR. Johnson made exceptions for unusually events like WWII, so I guess the war years don’t count.