Danny Sullivan:
Apparently, some people believe President Barack Obama wants to turn the United States into a socialist country — with fears that this would be a terrible step in the wrong direction. Fair to say, most people with these fears have never lived in a socialist country. I have, in Britain, for 12 years. I thought I’d share a bit about how terribly different and strange that economic system is from the one we enjoy in the United States.
It’s not that different.
In Britain, you have rich people, poor people and a lot of people in between. The key difference, economically speaking, is that the poor people have a safety net both in terms of income support and universal health care. This does not come by taxing the rich people to death. Neither does this produce a huge class of people who do nothing but live off the state.