Too many to list here, but the big one is Clinton's “The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream” directive which said, essentially, everyone deserves to own a home.
What Clinton said exactly was nothing of the sort - he cited the need for assistance to "young WORKING couples" in a [post WalMart] economy where income doesn't allow for saving for a down payment, as our parents did. Every single solitary word is about the "people who are doing it right" and still not getting there, not about "everyone deserves a house".
The "American Dream" has always been about working for it, and that used to be enough - but it isn't anymore.
It certainly wasn't meant to enrich the flippers, but they sure got their profits, didn't they?
I was being somewhat sarcastic with the "everyone deserves a house" crack, but that initiative and a large portion of Clinton's goals were about raising people's standard of living. The "young WORKING couples" you mention above who need that assistance, would see their standard of living go up if the assistance were provided.
We have to remember that there are millions of people just like them who believe that home ownership is out of reach. They may be paying monthly rents that could cover a mortgage payment. They may scrape to save, but a downpayment is still out of reach. They are locked out by rigid restrictions or by a home-buying system just, as Jean said, too difficult or too frightening. And that is not right.
That's a
quote from Bill Clinton in his remarks on the National Homeownership Strategy. Everything about that paragraph says those people deserve to be able to put a downpayment on a house, and thus that they serve a higher standard of living.
No person, even the President, can look at these young people and say, I will guarantee you, no matter what happens in the global economy, you will always have the job you have today, and you'll make more money next year than you did this year. You know no one can guarantee that in the global economy. That's not the way the world works anymore.
But we can guarantee to people that we're going to empower them to help themselves. We'll make home ownership more accessible. We'll make lifetime education and training more accessible. We'll make the things that make life work for people who are trying to do the best they can for themselves there. We have to begin with the basic things that make it worth doing.
Seems to me that he's saying that people who do work hard deserve to reap the rewards rather than have to accept the crappy cards they've currently been dealt. Everything about the above is about raising the standard of living because people who work hard for it deserve it.
What we are doing today will allow more homes to be blessed by more families. I hope it will start all these young people on a path that will take them to great joys in their personal lives, and perhaps to other homes, but something they will always know that their country wanted them to have because they were entitled to it as a part of the American dream.
That certainly seems like "something of the sort" to me.
The question you posed was, "Can anyone cite even ONE instance of people being told they 'deserve a certain standard of living' [other than minimal necessities]?" Well, that's one example, unless you need a specific quote where someone said it to someone using those exact words which didn't involve a luxury apartment or a Rolex.
One quote in his comments that really stand out, though, is:
Our home ownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation. It will not add more Federal programs or grow Federal bureaucracy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.
It reminds me of Teddy Kennedy's equally fatal prophetic comments when he pushed Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 reforms through when he stated:
"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."
Wrong on all counts.
I was about to comment on the flawed comparisons to the
"President Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration and made home ownership available to millions of Americans who couldn't afford it before that," and the "
Harry Truman rewarded service men and women with the GI bill of rights, which created the VA Home Loan Guarantee Program," and how during those times we had a strong manufacturing-based economy, relatively good job security, and sustained low unemployment, none of which we had when Clinton set this mess in motion, but then I remembered what this thread was about, so I'll refrain from commenting on it.
BTW, Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the engineers are German, the administrators are Swiss and the lovers are Italian.
Hell is where the police are German, the cooks are British,
the engineers are Italian, the administrators are French
and the lovers are Swiss.
