gaged in a programmatic repudiation of the romantic idealism that should have informed American governmental operations.
It is with Gingrich's book in the background that we may now turn to a series of works that deal with specific areas of concern that intersect with Gingrich's own. Two such works, The Tragedy of American Compassion by Olasky and Poverty of Welfare Reform by Handler, deal directly with the consequences of the structure that the American welfare state has assumed over the years. The conclusions drawn from each analysis are dramatically different, but they each coincide with Gingrich's book in that they deal with the welfare state, government's role in that structure, and the implications of social welfare for the federal budget.
In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Olasky looks back to a definition of compassion in American culture that involved reciprocity between the compassionate carers or caregivers, who offered or administered charity, and the recipients of the bounty of charity. According to Olasky, this view of charity, which wa
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