Interestingly, Chris, I had a similar thought this morning. Would Bill Clinton have ever had the audacity to make such a declaration of massive federal support? Probably not.
In fact, I'm scratching my head, wondering when Bush will use some of the language that Clinton did? Take, for instance, Clinton's “era of big government is over” address from 1996.
These are the seven challenges I set forth Tuesday night - to strengthen our families, to renew our schools and expand educational opportunity, to help every American who's willing to work for it achieve economic security, to take our streets back from crime, to protect our environment, to reinvent our government so that it serves better and costs less, and to keep America the leading force for peace and freedom throughout the world.
We will meet these challenges, not through big government. The era of big government is over, but we can't go back to a time when our citizens were just left to fend for themselves.
We will meet them by going forward as one America, by working together in our communities, our schools, our churches and synagogues, our workplaces across the entire spectrum of our civic life.
As we move forward with tomorrow's challenges, we also must take care of yesterday's unfinished business. First, we must balance the budget. In the 12 years before I took office the deficit skyrocketed and our national debt quadrupled.
While Clinton’s speech clearly has liberal undertones, Bush was essentially scrapping the whole concept and reinventing the era of big government. As you correctly observed earlier, socialism is on the march.
