By freebies do you mean helping poor children be able to get education at elementary school? Hugo Chavez instituted reforms that helped poor children get an education, there were many areas where poor children could not even get an elementary school education. You really can't compare the political and economic situation in America and Venezuela. What Obama is doing and what Chavez are doing are vastly different. In Venezuela they are not fighting against poverty, they are fighting against extreme poverty. Oh please!! you mean the elementary education that has always been free in Venezuela? Anyone who didn't get through the whole Venezuelan education system from kinder garden to university, for free, wasn't because they were left out, or discriminated against, it was because they simply didn't care about studying. The ones that didn't made it to universities was because they didn't like studying or because they weren't smart enough. Venezuela is not like the US or Europe where you need lots of money to get a college education, you can get it for free, if you're good enough, it has been like that since way before Chavez.    What Chavez did was literally PAY them to go to school, PAY them for getting pregnant, PAY them for doing nothing special, Chavez government is full of freebies and giv-mah-dat...    Before Chavez, children in public elementary schools were given meals and free school equipment like backpacks, notebooks, pencils, etc... And they did that with oil barrel prices at $4, $6, $8 and $12, not the $80 to over $100 like Chavez administration had.    And just for the record, it wasn't me who made the comparison between Chavez and Obama.