Word: shoes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Imagine a society in which only the affluent could buy their own shoes. The poor and a significant percentage of the middle class paid taxes to support a state-run distribution system which supplied shoes--a public shoe system, if you will...
...public shoe system, by contrast, was subsidized regardless of the quality and desirability of its wares, for its customers did not have the option of going elsewhere...
Moreover, since the public shoe system was a large, impersonal, centralized government agency, it was not flexible enough to respond to consumer needs and only issued one style and size of shoe. While the affluent were wearing shoes that were right for them, the poor and much of the middle class had to limp along in shoes that were too big, too small or the wrong style. Only occasionally did the product suit the customer...
Some middle-class people could have afforded to move up into the world of private shoe stores, but the taxes they were forced to pay to support the public shoe system kept their income too low for this. Worst of all, those dependent on the public shoe system were required to patronize the branch in their neighborhood, even if it was in bad repair, with broken windows, damaged goods and thugs waiting outside...
Others would call From the sand in the party's shoe. A curmudgeonly Indiana native, he is tolerated more than he is loved. From grew up in South Bend, graduated from Northwestern University with a journalism degree and went to work for Lyndon Johnson in the war on poverty. An anomaly in Democratic politics -- he is neither pollster, nor consultant, nor academic, nor public official -- From is responsible less for crafting the leadership council's proposals than for selling them. From raised the money, organized the conferences, hired the experts and started 30 council chapters nationwide. "Al is the impresario...