From really since President Franklin Roosevelt started passing the first programs of the New Deal in the 1930s. America entered a new Progressive/Social-Democratic era where the Federal Government would take a much larger role. In making sure that Americans had enough to get by and even live well with all the new social insurance programs. From Unemployment Insurance to Retirement Insurance which is what Social Security is to Welfare Insurance. For low skilled people who simply don't have the skills to take care of themselves, get a good enough job that would allow for them. To support their kids and families, to the national highway system in the 1950s, to public housing health insurance for seniors and the poor in the. 1960s to education for low income students in the 1960s, there was a feeling in the 1930s that actually started. Earlier in the 20th Century that private enterprise and Capitalism which should stay in place but that alone was not good enough. To meet the needs of the American people and we needed a safety net to cover the rest.
That really started changing in the mid 1960s with Barry Goldwater's Republican Presidential campaign and with. More Conservatives getting elected in 1966 and 1968, with Richard Nixon being elected President in 1968. The feeling wasn't really to blowup the safety net but to manage it better and decentralize it and use. It in away that would allow for people who are on public assistance to be able to work their way off of it. And that the Federal Government needed to be capped when it came to social insurance spending and that taxes. Were getting too high period and needed to be rolled back something that Gerry Ford tried to do but wasn't successful as President. That other Conservatives had success at doing at the state level in the late 1970s and that Ronald Reagan was finally able to pass at the Federal level. In 1981 and really since Barry Goldwater, Dick Nixon and the late 1960s we've moved out of the Progressives welfare state era. Into a more Conservative era that Ron Reagan and other Conservative Republicans were able to capitalize on in the 1980s.
This is something that Bill Clinton and other New-Democrats the real Liberal Democrats in the Democratic Party. Saw coming and realized in the 1980s and started their political comeback and rebuild the Democratic Party. And now only be able to compete in the new Conservative Republican era but to come up with a new Liberal Democratic vision. And even create their own era that was about the people and not about government or private enterprise. But that government is here to serve the people not take care of people who can take care of themselves. Who are physically and mentally capable of working but lacked the skills to work full time and be able to take care of themselves and their families. And that its the job of government to empower these people to able to take care of themselves with things like. Education, job training, childcare and job placement which is what the 1996 Welfare to Work Law or TANF is all about.
We are now in this Clinton-Obama New-Democratic era of Liberalism that Republicans who are still in a Neoconservative political World. Haven't figured out how to compete against at least at the national level and bring in new voters. Who not only believe in freedom but believe in freedom across the board and for all people and not just restricting freedom. To economic freedom or freedom for Christians but freedom for all Americans who only want to work hard. Be productive and successful in America and be able to live their own lives which is New-Democratic Party of today. Who want government to serve us and not be there to take care of us.
