# Guns or Butter ![rw-book-cover](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Uq43wcVVL._SY160.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Irving Bernstein]] - Full Title: Guns or Butter - Category: #books ## Highlights - JOHN Nance Garner said that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.” He spoke out of a rich experience, including two terms as Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President. The history of the office supported his conclusion. ([Location 68](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=68)) - According to the National Opinion Research Center study, by 1:00 p.m. CST on Friday, when Kennedy was pronounced dead, 68 percent of adult Americans had heard the news; by 6 p.m. it had swelled to 99.8 percent (only 2 of 1,384 respondents ([Location 356](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=356)) - said that they did not hear the news till Saturday). In previous disasters at least 10 to 20 percent said they did not learn what had happened until much later. The NORC ([Location 358](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=358)) - Further, the situation in 1964 was unique in allowing for a reduction in tax rates without causing a decline in government revenues, in fact, increasing them. This was because the Revenue Act of 1964 cut the obsolete wartime tax rates which had become a drag on the economy. It was the best of all possible worlds: taxes were lower and the funds available for existing and even new government services rose. But, once the old rate structure was eliminated, that was it. Thereafter a tax reduction would reduce tax receipts and the government would need to borrow or to reduce its services, or both. ([Location 849](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=849)) - Ole Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, the epic novel of Norwegian pioneer life. ([Location 1192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=1192)) - Williams Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson were his heroes and he regularly read the children the Cross of Gold speech and the Fourteen Points. ([Location 1197](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=1197)) - The Great Depression battered South Dakota and the Humphreys. The massive dust storm on Armistice Day, 1932, etched itself on his memory. The sun was blacked out, the heat was oppressive, the dust penetrated every crevice, and hordes of grasshoppers descended on the region. Humphrey had to sell the house to cover his debts. The banks in Doland failed and the farmers bartered produce for goods at the drug store. Both Hubert and his brother Ralph attended the University of Minnesota, but when money ran out, Hubert went back to the store. The Depression, he said later, “left a lasting impression on me. Much of my politics has been conditioned by it.” He became a devout New Dealer and worshipped Franklin Roosevelt. He went to the Denver College of Pharmacy and completed a two-year course in six months. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0055BLW42&location=1203))