Saturday, January 5, 2013

January 5: Truman's "Fair Deal"

On this date in History .... 1949:

Truman tries to piggyback FDR’s “New Deal” ideas by offering a “Fair Deal” in his State of the Union address, stating that the people of the U.S. had a right to expect a fair deal from their government. 
 
He wanted to increase minimum wage, offer a national health care program, improve public housing, federal aid for education, assistance to farmers and more.  However, coming right at the end of World War II, these ideas sounded too close to socialism and an anti-communist attitude threw up barriers to Truman’s ideas. 
 
He did get a few changes passed, such as increasing minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents an hour but by 1950, the Korean and Cold Wars were detracting his attention from domestic matters.
 
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