We all know Reagan is beloved among the Republican Party. Here are the facts:
Reagan withdrew birth control for the poor and international dismantling humanitarian programs including contraceptives for the poor and international family planning, discarded entire classes of people when he threw the mentally ill onto the streets, let the AIDS epidemic spread, neglected the urban poor.Reagan fathered the trickle-down lie that never happened, he taught America to despise government and was the father of modern-era deregulation which led to Savings and Loan crisis and its multi-billion dollar bailout. He midwifed the era of leveraged buy-outs (greed is good), as well as insider trading scandals in his day, not to mention firing the air-traffic controllers, the beginning of the assault on and disempowerment of unions, and he destroyed the domestic airlines in his free time.
He orchestrated treasonous acts against American interests, not only with Iran-Contra, but even before assuming office with the Iranian hostages. The Iran-Contra crimes led to the cocainization of America and the modern urban crack epidemic, as well as the conviction, indictment and/or investigation of 138 Reagan administration officials for misconduct and/or criminal activities.
The first administration in American history to have a sitting cabinet member indicted, assistant secretary of state indicted, assistant secretary of defense sent to prison, over 100 members of an administration charged with crimes.
For the record: Clinton had fewer convictions and forced resignations than any two-term administration since Teddy Roosevelt. And a first with a balanced budget.
Reagan supported a slew of dictators and terrorists including the ayatollah (negotiated its own illegal deal with the ayatollah to hold them through the elections and release them like so many doves on Reagan's inauguration day) and Saddam Hussein (gave him deadly bacterial agents while selling arms to Iran which was notorious for its support of international terrorism), Osama bin Laden (armed, funded and trained him and his people and referred to him as "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers of America"), and the Mujahadeen, Marcos, Duarte and Duvalier.
A word on Carter: In just four years, he brokered a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, major arms control achievement (brokered SALT II) established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology leading to a 59 percent reduction in oil imports between 1977-82 and normalized relations with China (Nixon merely opened the door here, but failed to bring home the deal.) And he undoubtedly would have brokered the release of the American hostages in Iran had not the treasonous Reagan administration. The Soviet Union was so far behind the U.S. in computer technology for instance, that a more plausible argument could be made that Bill Gates won the Cold War not Reagan.
He'd built up the biggest debt ever, created an unprecedented homeless population, created an unprecedented and unjust prison population, shoveled money from social services and education into prisons, police, and military, and made the US internationally hated.
Reagan was a grandfather who made us feel better about ourselves.
Once the buyouts are paid back, which they are starting, too, the deficit will get lower and lower.
"I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." - George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2008.
Reaganomics at full thrust.
Anthony Burchette
Warsaw, via e-mail
Editor's Note: This letter was edited to conform more closely to the 500-word limit stated in our "Letters Policy."
