Word: besting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Nature is at its best when McKibben explains the consequences of his "end of nature." Although not a scientist, he writes clearly and perceptively about several reasonably esoteric subjects--from genetic engineering to the recently-discovered hole in the Antarctic ozone layer. Although his explanations of global warming may seem doom-laden, they contain enough hard facts to give even the least environmentally aware person a serious jolt...
...presidential term in the '70s, he nationalized Venezuela's oil industry, slapped controls on prices and interest rates, mandated wage boosts, increased regulation of agriculture and made government-subsidized loans to low-income city dwellers, peasants and small businessmen. Perez personified the socialist conviction that the common good can best be bought with public money. But by the time he left office, Venezuela was suffering from a massive deficit and high inflation, which were followed by a recession and crippling foreign debt when the oil boom turned to bust...
...Government isn't the solution; it's the problem." As a candidate and a President, Ronald Reagan loved that line. But Reagan seemed simply to be indulging in harmless hyperbole or offering his version of the time-honored aphorism that government is best when it governs least. Surely he did not seriously propose to dismantle an institution that had brought the U.S. through two world wars, restored stability during the Depression and played a major part in developing one of the highest standards of living on earth...
Ironically, the best depiction to date of the nation's gridlock may have come last summer from a ranking member of the Bush Administration: Budget Director Richard Darman. In a speech at the National Press Club, Darman blasted both the Government and the voters for mimicking spoiled children with demands of "now-nowism -- our collective shortsightedness, our obsession with the here and now, our reluctance adequately to address the future . . . Many think of ((the deficit)) as a cause of our problems. But it is also a symptom, a kind of silent now-now scream...
Discipline is not what Congress is best at. It prefers being a dispenser of largesse to being a moral policeman or stern taskmaster. Leadership is generally left to the President. Yet George Bush seems to have as much trouble as ever with "the vision thing." Handcuffed by his simplistic "read my lips" campaign rhetoric against a tax increase as well as by his cautious personality, Bush too often appears self-satisfied and reactive...