Granted, the term "socialist", which is being bandied about by the GOP, like a Little River Band reunion concert in some trailer park, is a tired and overused retread for half-wits, dittoheads and their ilk.
What needs to be mentioned whenever a Republican starts throwing the term "socialist" around that they need to be reminded of how Ronald Reagan could be seen as asocialist by today's "standards".
There's something called the Earned Income Tax Credit:
Enacted in 1975, the initially modest EIC has been expanded by tax legislation on a number of occasions, including the more widely-publicized Reagan EIC expansion of 1986.<...>
Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States (despite the fact that most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit), and enjoys broad bipartisan support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_CreditThis subject was brought up during the past election where Palin and McCain were calling Obama a "socialist". Look where it got them...