Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin' to sell
-- Bob Dylan

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Gwen Ifill interviewed George Bush in 2004 about the 'ownership society'


We are deeply saddened by the loss of one of the great, path-breaking journalist, Gwen Ifill, who died yesterday at the age of 61. Much too soon.

I'm happy I got to meet Gwen once in D.C. and tell her personally how much I thought of and respected her.

She appears in our book, Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society which highlights her 2004 give-and-take with Pres. George W. Bush on the Jim Lehrer Newshour, in which Ifill credits Bush and V.P. Dick Cheney with coming up with the term, Ownership Society. 
GWEN IFILL: During the campaign, President Bush and Vice President Cheney coined a new phrase to describe the economic promise of a second term. They said they would create an “ownership society,” one that would lower taxes and shift more of government’s burden to individuals.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I believe our country can and must become an ownership society. When you own something, you care about it. When you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of your country. 
The ownership society terminology was coined to reassure Bush's relatively small, but single-minded Republican base that "free market" reforms, including the privatization of public space, would be pushed aggressively in the 2004 election campaign.

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