(np) truly heinous

[Monte Davis]

Michael Bailey sez:

>truly heinous was the Reagan Administration's gutting Social Security
in order to finance tax cuts and Star Wars..

Umm... I have little to say for the Gipper, but:

"Reagan also vastly expanded one of the largest federal domestic programs,
Social Security. Before becoming president, he had often openly mused, much
to the alarm of his politically sensitive staff, about restructuring Social
Security to allow individuals to opt out of the system--an antecedent of
today's privatization plans. At the start of his administration, with Social
Security teetering on the brink of insolvency, Reagan attempted to push
through immediate draconian cuts to the program. But the Senate unanimously
rebuked his plan, and the GOP lost 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm
elections, largely as a result of this overreach.

"The following year, Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces
in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of
Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of
conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees
and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal
workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security
benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income
recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn't indexed to
inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it
over time.).."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html