Conservative David Frum: Two cheers for the welfare state

David Frum:

"In the aftermath of the catastrophe, the free-market assumption and expectation that an unemployed person could always find work somewhere has been massively falsified," Frum writes. "Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans - and not only Americans - were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid"--an Axis of Not-Evil!--"mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid."

(H/t HuffPost Hill)