(np) truly heinous

[Joe Allonby]

The Reagan worshippers eyes glaze over when you tell them that he grew
the size of the federal government, increased taxes, ran up an
unprecedented debt, and was fiscally irresponsible to the point of
spending like a drunken sailor. On top of this, he traded arms for
hostages, supported terrorists in Central America, recognized the
Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia, got the US
military into the cocaine business, and lauded Lech Walesa as a heroic
anti-communist even though he was advocating worker control of the
means of production. He advocated quiet diplomacy for the apartheid
regime of South Africa while rattling sabres everyplace else. Let's
not forget the stock market crash on his watch. Reaganomics. Morning
in America, my ass.


On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 5:40 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>