Free Republic

<p>Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who died Wednesday, was one of the most intriguing public figures of his time.</p> <p>Moynihan was an intellectual; most at home in the realm of ideas. He was an academic by training and published 18 books and numerous influential articles and essays.</p>

The left was very clever in 1935 when it created the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, commonly known as welfare. They simply made it an open-ended, state-administered entitlement program with the states setting the eligibility requirements and benefit levels. The federal government automatically matched whatever a state government spent. All states received a dollar for dollar match and those states with a greater number of poor families were allocated a greater percentage match. Since that time other programs have been created using the same principle. Medicaid and the old social services programs are examples. The result was...

<p>Seattle Slew, the horse that won the Triple Crown in 1977, has died. So have the political ideas that were as dominant as he was 25 years ago.</p> <p>Caught up in today's political battles, we forget how much the world has changed since then. Jimmy Carter was president. Tip O'Neill, whose political life began during F.D.R.'s New Deal, was speaker of the House. Despite Nixon's usurpation, everyone knew that Democratic control of the American government was permanent — as was communist domination of half the world.</p>