The high cost of good intentions : a history of U.S. federal entitlement programs

Creating legislative precedents : Revolutionary War pensions -- An experiment with government trust funds : Navy pensions -- The first great entitlement : Civil War pensions -- Repeating past mistakes : World War I veterans benefits -- Retrenchment : Roosevelt and the veterans -- The birth of the modern entitlement state -- The consequences of social security surpluses -- A new kind of entitlement : the G.I. Bill -- Setting the post-war entitlement agenda : 1946/1950 -- 1951/1964 : establishing social insurance dominance -- The beginning of the great turn in welfare policy : 1951/1964 -- The first Great Society -- A legal right to welfare -- The second Great Society -- First inklings of fiscal limits : 1975/1980 -- A temporary slowdown : 1981/1989 -- Recognition and denial : 1989/2014 -- A challenge unlike any in U.S. history