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Reagan promised to balance the budget and yet never, not once, submitted a balanced budget.
Reagan holds the record for raising the debt ceiling 18 times over his 2 terms.
Regan promised not to raise taxes and then raised Payroll taxes to make sure money was available for retirees in 20 years. The money was immediately deficit spent. Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2 did the same.
He and Nancy put the "W" into the War on Drugs. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 included reform of FOIA and broadened law enforcement exemption and increased the authority of federal agencies to withhold sensitive law enforcement documents in their possession. The Act included a budget of $1.7 billion to fund the war and increase the severity of punishment for drug related offences.
Yes, and to that I would add Reagan's mishandling of issues related to mental illness, his stubborn refusal to address or do anything about AIDS for years, the fact that as president of the Screen Actors Guild he ruined the lives of several good people by being an informant for Joe McCarthy, the fact that he had more convicted felons (138) than any American president, and that he violated the Boland Amendment to the Constitution in order to instigate the Iran Contra affair. He was just the Charlie McCarthy to Poppy Bush's Edgar Bergen...a grade-B actor with the role of a lifetime.
I barely read it and it went immediately out of my mind. I'm not going to waste yet more time reading it again. It's nothing but hot air. I don't need to dispute it. I know without question how I feel and don't need some goofball making up nonsense.
Right-wingers and their famous debating skills. Pure comedy, eh?
I barely read it and it went immediately out of my mind. I'm not going to waste yet more time reading it again. It's nothing but hot air. I don't need to dispute it. I know without question how I feel and don't need some goofball making up nonsense.
So, in other words, as a great Reagan lover and admirer, you wish to God that everyone would wake up on here and come to grasp that the following about Reagan is nothing but all out made up lies. NONE OF IT IS TRUE! IT's BS!!
1. Reagan was a big FDR fanboy.
Though Reagan famously quipped, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help,'" he admired Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who arguably did more to expand the role of government than any other American leader. Reagan voted for FDR all four times and called him "one of history's truly monumental figures." It would be hard to find a GOP candidate today willing to admit a similar admiration for Roosevelt.
2. Reagan was no stranger to tax hikes.
Reagan was not afraid to raise taxes. As governor of California, he signed the largest tax increase in the history of any state at that time. Though it's true that under President Reagan, the top income tax rate decreased from roughly 70 percent to 28 percent, taxes increased 11 times during his tenure. As professor Douglas Brinkley, author of The Reagan Diaries, said in a 2011 NPR interview, "There's a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn't happen that way."
3. Reagan helped expand the federal government.
Though the myth persists, Reagan did not reduce the size of the government during his tenure. Annual federal spending during his terms averaged 22.4 percent of the gross domestic product, which is greater than the 20.8 percent average under President Jimmy Carter. As then-Slate editor Michael Kinsley once noted, the federal government's spending increased by 25 percent in real terms from the time Reagan entered office to the time he left. During the same time, the federal civilian workforce grew from 2.8 million to 3 million.
4. Reagan gave amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants.
With today's heated rhetoric over immigration reform and border security, many tea party supporters should be horrified that Reagan signed a 1986 law granting amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants. Anyone who came to the U.S. prior to 1982 was eligible for the amnesty. The comprehensive legislation also mandated tighter security along the Mexican border and provided for penalties on employers who hired immigrants without papers.
5. Reagan blew up the national debt.
Debt reduction is now a central tenet of Republican ideology, but during the Reagan presidency, the national debt tripled -- from $995 billion to $2.9 trillion. In a 1998 book, Richard Darman, the former president's adviser, declared, "In the Reagan years, more federal debt was added than in the entire prior history of the United States." 6. One of Reagan's Supreme Court appointees saved abortion rights.
When Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court in 1981, she came with a record of pro-choice votes as an Arizona state legislator, much to the chagrin of evangelicals. The first woman justice, O'Connor would become a critical swing vote on abortion and reaffirm the core of Roe v. Wade in 1992. In other words, Reagan's decision to name O'Connor to the Supreme Court ensured that women had the right to choose for another generation.
7. Reagan negotiated with terrorists. In the events that became known as Iran-Contra, Reagan went where Republicans wouldn't dare today: He negotiated with terrorists. Trying to free American hostages held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon, Reagan violated the U.S. embargo and secretly sold weapons to Iran. The funds from selling those weapons were then used to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Some would argue that Iran-Contra was a far greater scandal than those now facing President Barack Obama.
Right-wingers and their famous debating skills. Pure comedy, eh?
They're intellectually bankrupt, so feeble responses are usually the best that they can muster. What can you expect from people who disdain academia and intellectuals? William F. Buckley is spinning in his grave and wishing he had a big, fat joint.
And let's not forget the fiasco's in Central America, and his turning a blind, knowing eye to Saddam Hussein's usage of chemical weapons against the Kurds, and his and Nancy's love affair with the Marcos's!
He granted amnesty to the Marcos's, and they both should have been put on Death Row or imprisoned on Guantanamo Bay!
And to think Nancy's good friend Imelda is back in the Philippines, at age 82, in her second term as a congresswoman!
Aaannnd there's my cue to stop reading. Tell this to the Reagan-hating apparatus that still insists he was the second coming of Hitler, Ghengis Khan, and Marie Antoinette combined.
Meanwhile, is it safe to say you've changed your mind about Reagan?
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Originally Posted by knowledgeiskey
Hell, Ronald Reagan even candidly wrote a letter to Rush Limbaugh to thank him for pushing the right-wing agenda. Don't believe me? Look it up.
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Originally Posted by knowledgeiskey
This can't be. Mr. Reagan is a conservative hero. He was for conservative principles.
He won the Cold War and ended the longest and most expensive war in history. He did this with little if any support from Democrats and even many Republicans did not support him.
He had a very Liberal Democratic Congress which controlled spending and overspent, lied about immigration control and expanded government.
I'll take his victory in the Cold War over anything else.
say what you want about Ronnie,
it still doesnt change the fact obama sucks and his supporters are parasites.
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