Word: 1960s
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...early- to mid-1960s, though, the persistence of prosperity finally became too blatant to ignore, and one prominent economist proclaimed that we had one foot through the door of a Golden Age. Recessions, if any, would be short and mild; John Maynard Keynes had shown us how to stop them. Lyndon Johnson never doubted that a growing economy would generate enough revenues to finance wars against communists in Vietnam and poverty at home-simultaneously. Civil-rights crusaders never considered the possibility that blacks would be educated and trained for good jobs that would fail to appear. Even hippies assumed they...
...patronage of unprofitable arts and cultural activities tilted in the 1960s away from private donors toward an increasingly activist Federal Government. The results of the 1994 elections ensure that the cultural debate of 1995 will center on reversing that trend. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the new Republican majorities in Congress are determined to chop off funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, which last year distributed $146 million to 3,800 organizations and individuals, and to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in 1994 meted out $285.6 million to the Public Broadcasting System and its 345 member stations...
Technologies ranging from the telegraph to the telephone, from typewriter to carbon paper have all made mass organization easier and cheaper. And since the 1960s, the technologies have unfolded relentlessly: computerized mass mailing, the personal computer and printer, the fax, the modem and increasingly supple software for keeping tabs on members or prospective members. The number of associations, both political and apolitical, has grown in lockstep with these advances. One bellwether -- the size of the American Society of Association Executives -- went from 2,000 in 1965 to 20,000 in 1990. As for sheerly political organizations: no one knows exactly...
There was a second impetus to interest-group growth: in the 1960s, just as the technology of computerized direct mail was emerging, a proliferation of government programs created fresh issues to get interested in. Combined, the two factors were explosive. The American Association of Retired Persons, founded in 1958, did its first lobbying in 1965 with the arrival of Medicare. Over the next 25 years, its membership grew from a million to more than 30 million. Today it sends out 50 million pieces of mail a year. And when its members talk -- especially about Medicare or Social Security -- Congress listens...
Perversely, though, politicians are also punished if they do obey. The classic complaint about President Clinton is that he stands for nothing. Which is to say, he's willing to do just about anything to satisfy voters. Since the 1960s, the number of Americans expressing trust in Washington has dropped from around 70% to near 20%. This is commonly interpreted as a judgment against the growing power of special-interest lobbyists. But it could also be a reaction against the increasingly abject spinelessness of politicians, a byproduct of the very same trend. Indeed, the one clear exception to the number...