"Could America be at another turning point in 2004? Another time like the '60s, and '80s when people decided it was time to change the direction in which our public policies were headed? That is the question political scholar Michael Barone indirectly poses in his new book, "Hard America, Soft America, Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future."

Following the postwar enthusiasm of the 1950s, America's policies softened. In the '60s and '70s government grew, regulation increased, welfare programs expanded, crime rose while prison populations dropped, schools lowered standards and limited testing, and the distribution of wealth became more important than its creation. As Lyndon B. Johnson said, we must accept "greater government activity in the affairs of the people.""


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