A Bill of Right

"What happened to the Washington that created something so magnificent? Why do we no longer expect—or demand—greatness from Americans' joint enterprise, our government? In the 1960s, before Watergate and Vietnam, most Americans believed that their government usually did the right thing. Now we've accepted Ronald Reagan's old formulation about the nine most dangerous words in the English language: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' How ironic that a member of the GI Bill generation would sell his countrymen on that idea. But it's not a truism; it's self-fulfilling prophecy. We expect our government to fail, and it meets our expectations."

Edward Humes, author of Over Here: How the GI Bill Transformed the American Dream, argues in favor of a new GI Bill in the Los Angeles Times.