The Fairdeal Family at Home

May 29, 1950

George Fairdeal and his wife, Alice, are having breakfast.

Alice: But if we decide to buy the new house, dear, we’ll have to give up that trip to Europe this summer.

George: Why? Why not do both?

Alice: But we’ve only got $1,000 in the bank. If we use that to take title to the house, we won’t have anything left for the trip!

George: You always worry about where the money’s coming from. If we have to, we’ll borrow it.

Alice: From your brother Bob again? We’ve been getting more deeply in debt to him every year!

George: Oh, don’t talk like a Republican! Bob’s one of the family. As I always say to him: “We just owe it to ourselves.”

Alice: And how about the money for Jane’s singing lessons?

George: Don’t worry! My family’s going to have everything! The best!

Alice: Now be sensible, dear. What’s our income from the store?

George: About $3,500 a year. And that’s not bad. It’s more than the income of most families in the country today. I was just reading—

Alice: I’m not complaining, dear. But if it’s $3,500 then we can’t spend $4,500. And if we spend our $1,000 savings in Europe we just won’t have it for a new house of our own. We can’t get a quart out of a pint jug. That’s all I’m trying to say.

George: Raise your sights, Alice! Dream big dreams and plan big plans! Our national income is running today at a rate of $223,000,000,000 a year! Hot diggity! And ten years from now it’s going to be $350,000,000,000!

Alice: But we’re running into debt, dear—now! Remember? Some day we’ll have to pay Bob back. When are we going to start? And how about saving something? Suppose one of us gets sick? And what are we going to live on in our old age?

George: This is the richest nation in the world. The government ought to pay our medical bills. The government ought to give us old-age pensions! They can afford it!

Alice: When you say the government ought to pay our medical bills, George, aren’t you really saying that other families ought to pay our medical bills for us?

George: Oh, bosh! The government has plenty of money.

Alice: Where does it get it?

George: Eh—from taxes. And I’m willing to pay my share of increased taxes for socialized medicine!

Alice: But we’re an average family. Suppose we have the average amount of sickness and pay the average tax? Then everybody else may be paying our medical bills but we’ve taken on everybody else’s medical bills! We’re no better off than when we started. And we can’t save for our own old age because we have to pay out the money in taxes to provide for everybody else’s old age. It’s just silly to think that everybody can be supported at the expense of everybody else!

George: We gotta distribute things fairer. Equalize things!

Alice: Do you mean, dear, that everybody who earns more than we do should have the difference taken away from him? Wouldn’t that reduce his incentive to earn? And if his money is spent on those who earn less than we do, won’t the people who get the handouts also have less incentive to earn? So wouldn’t practically everybody produce less? And wouldn’t that leave less of everything to distribute?

George: Don’t be an obstructionist, Alice! The government ought to spend more on hospitals—

Alice: But won’t that leave less for education, for instance?

George: The country should spend more on both! We must have—

Alice: But won’t that leave still less for food or housing or whatever else we’re already spending money on? All you’re saying, dear, is that every family should be forced through higher taxes to spend its money on the things you think it needs instead of on the things each family itself thinks it needs. The more they spend on one thing the less they have left to—

George: Oh, bicker, bicker. I’m still hungry, Alice. How about some of that coffee cake we had yesterday?

Alice: We ate it, dear.

George: (flabbergasted): We did?