I Like Ike
"Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security . . . you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are Texas millionaires. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."Dwight D. Eisenhower, during his campaign for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1952.
Reading this passage in Michael Korda's biography "IKE: An American Hero," provided a marvelous reminder that the GOPs division between moderates and a hardline right, is nothing new. The hardline wing of the GOP, headed then by Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio, not only wanted to undo Social Security and other programs of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, just as the GOP today wants to undo President Obama's Affordable Care Act, they also opposed the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the billions spent in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe from the ashes of World War II.
