Institutionalizing Meanness

Before 1982, if your Social Security benefit came to, say, $419.43 you would receive a monthly check of $419.50. If you began collecting Social Security in 1982, however, and were entitled to the same benefit, your monthly check would be automatically rounded down to $419.00. The change is emblematic of the meanness of the Reagan-Bush administrations, now mutating into a more virulent form.

To be “mean,” a dictionary tells us, is to be “1a: selfish in a petty way, unk...