Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream

by Edward Humes

Book Overview

In 1944, the U.S. government feared the flood of returning World War II soldiers as much as it looked forward to peace. To avoid economic catastrophe, FDR, the American Legion, William Randolph... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151007101
• ISBN13: 9780151007103
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Learned a lot

I enjoyed the book and learned a lot that I wasn't aware of. Humes did a nice job of weaving the 'human element' of how the GI Bill changed people's lives and changed our country. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that inadvertently the GI Bill was one of the best investments in the United States and its citizens---even though when they wrote the "Serviceman's Readjustment Act" and got it passed through Congress--no one had any idea how powerful it would be. I'd suggest it is time for another one!

GI Bill

An very important work on a very important if not defining issue of @0th century America.

A Good Historical Perspective

The GI Bill following World War II was one of the largest, and most expensive, pieces of social legislation in US history. Was that good or bad? Don't answer that question until you have read this book. We have become accustomed to using the words "failure" and "government" together, and it seems the federal government goes to great lengths to ensure we keep doing that. We are all familiar with federal agencies, bureaus, and programs that epitomize incompetence, stupidity, corruption, and waste. But not everything the federal government does is a failure. Talk to any veteran who is receiving healthcare from the Veterans Administration today, and you'll realize that, yes, the federal government can actually do some things right. But you would be hard-pressed to find a better example of something done right than the original GI Bill. Humes interviewed WWII veterans who received various benefits from the GI Bill. Those veterans provided fascinating accounts of something the government actually got right. Humes wove these accounts into a larger narrative, so we can see what brought the GI Bill about. We can also understand and appreciate the profound changes it brought to America. Humes' adroit authoring resulted in an informative book that is a pleasure to read. Though well-written, this book contains some errors. Errors The errors involve economics and mathematics, which aren't normally the bailiwick of someone with Humes' background as a journalist. Since he chose to write in these areas (errantly) anyhow, I have summarized the errors here: * Humes mistakenly defines the taxes of Americans in terms of the published federal income tax rates. This narrow view grossly understates the typical American tax burden. It ignores the dozens of other taxing mechanisms. For example, there are 127 different taxes in the price of a single loaf of bread. Did you know that the tax on an airline ticket can be a third or more of its price? Taxes appear to be more abundant than hydrogen. Looking at only one form of taxation as being the form of taxation is intellectually disabling. This "blinders on" approach leads to false comparisons of the tax burdens among nations, allowing bad public policy to escape scrutiny. Citizens of the United States, a debtor nation, pay higher taxes than do citizens of other industrialized nations. You can calculate the extent of the damage by looking at how much the US government spends. You just need to understand that money to pay for this spending comes out of taxpayers' hides (the pockets were emptied long ago) one way or another. Despite wishful thinking, money does not grow on trees. * Humes talks of the "massive tax cuts" that allegedly took place over the past few years. It's unfortunate that Humes parroted this political rhetoric. Those "tax cuts" are just another example of giving a little with the one hand and taking much with the other. In reality, we have suffered an enormous increase in our tax burden over t