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Originally Posted by Colonel
Well, I read your article, and I have to agree that it is totally slanted and a gross misrepresentation of what happened during the Reagan years. For those of you who were not old enough to have been out of school and working during those years, please don't believe misrepresentations like those found in this article. Is any President perfect? No. But it chaps my butt when folks bend the truth to further their agenda. Keep in mind that I voted for President Carter when he ran against Ronald Reagan. Here are my thoughts on this article:
1) the AIDS issue - AIDS took us all by surprise when it first was discovered. Nobody realized the seriousness of it for several years. Is it the President's job to cure the disease? No. Did he increase funding once they realized what was going on ? Yes. To blame President Reagan for not acting faster is the same as blaming New York firefighters for not having evacuated Tower Two faster on 9/11. Hindsight is always 20/20. We would all do things differently if given a second chance, but I believe that folks are doing the best job they can, with the information available, at the moment of decision.
2) Reagan created the homeless problem - that is such a stupid statement that I hate to even reply to it. When President Regan took office, interest rates had been over 20%. Folks were getting their houses foreclosed on because they couldn't make the payments with the rates so high. The source article that is referenced says, "Before Reagan, people sleeping in the street were so rare that, outside of skid rows, they were almost a curiosity." That's the dumbest statement yet. It's just not true.
ahh but it is" read below.
3) "Ronnie Reagan pillaged the U.S. Treasury and ballooned the deficit more than 100 percent during his term. He gave the wealthy enormous tax breaks " - The fact is that President Reagan's economy increased revenues to the Federal Treasury more than any President in history. Congress spends the money. The problem was, that even though revenues increased, Congress increased spending at an even faster pace. It was like a feeding frenzy. Those bastitches had never seen that much money rolling in and they couldn't control their urges to spend, spend, spend. As for giving the wealthy tax breaks, I wish the left would make up their mind. I have read liberal commentators lately that are trying to say that President Reagan;s tax cuts were a myth because he closed so many loopholes, in capital gains etc. that people actually paid more. How can they say that and then turn around and say he gave too many cuts to the rich? Sounds to me like they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. As for me, during most of those years I made less than $20,000 per year. Definitely not rich. And I got a tax cut.
4) Deregulation unleashed corporate America on the populace - being a supporter of President Carter I am proud of the fact that he was the one to start the trend toward deregulation...not President Reagan. The competition that President Carter started and President Reagan continued, was one of the driving forces that turned this country's economy around. You kids have never had to live through 10%+ inflation rates and 20%+ interest. Don't go badmouthing changes that were made during desperate times unless you have lived through them and did a better job at correcting the problem.
aw crap, I'm too tired to write about every paragraph in this article. The dang thing was obviously written by someone with an ax to grind and who is willing to bend the truth to grind it.
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ok for 1.
Lets see some facts to back up this "fact that he raised money for aids research once he saw its seriousnous. Once you get these statistics compare them to future president BIll CLinton or hell even Bush Senior.
for 2.....
[quote="Kevin Fagen":c5f48]Praise for the late President Ronald Reagan's sunny resonance with the common man has been rasping all week on the ears of many activists and social workers who watched in vain as homelessness exploded under his watch --
and they hope the history books remember one thing:
Before Reagan, people sleeping in the street were so rare that, outside of skid rows, they were almost a curiosity. After eight years of Reaganomics - - and the slashes in low-income housing and social welfare programs that went along with it -- they were seemingly everywhere.
And America had a new household term: "The homeless."
"I don't think he was a bad guy, but I think he thought the private charity system could address homelessness. And he was wrong," said Michael Stoops, co-founder in 1981 of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., which he still helps direct. "He was a Robin Hood in reverse, who took from the poor and gave to the rich, and I think Americans have such short attention spans they forget this."
Reagan's supporters don't quite see it this way, of course, but his critics say the single most powerful thing Reagan did to create homelessness was to cut the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by three-quarters, from $32.2 billion in 1981 to $7.5 billion by 1988. The department was the main governmental supporter of subsidized housing for the poor and, combined with the administration's overhaul of tax codes to reduce incentives for private developers to create low-income homes, the nation took a hit to its stock of affordable housing from which it has yet to recover, they contend.
During the same period, the average family income of the poorest fifth of the American population dropped by 6.1 percent, and rose 11.1 percent for the top fifth, according to "Sleepwalking Through History," the best-selling assessment of the Reagan years by Haynes Johnson. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32.5 million in 1988.
And the number of homeless people went from something so little it wasn't even written about widely in the late 1970s to more than 2 million when Reagan left office.
"His HUD cuts were the main factor in creating homelessness, and we said that throughout the 1980s, but Reagan and his people never listened," said Stoops. "Reagan, very similar to Herbert Hoover, did not believe the federal government had a role in addressing poverty, so he resisted any legislation or programs that did that.
"Besides, how could he help the poor when he didn't even know who they were?"
Stoops and his close friend, the late Mitch Snyder -- the foremost leader in activism for homeless people in the 1980s -- slept on heating grates outside the White House in protest throughout 1986 and 1987 to push Reagan to fund programs for homeless people. When Reagan finally signed the Stewart McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in 1987, Stoops was sure he did so only because Congress had enough votes to override a veto, though the ex- president's supporters pointed to it as a positive sign that Reagan cared.
The gesture was more than counterweighed by Reagan's cuts in unemployment, disability, food stamp and family welfare programs, Stoops said -- not to mention the president's vilification of "welfare queens" as cheats in an effort to justify cuts.
"He was a catastrophe," said Terry Messman, who co-founded the now- defunct Oakland Union of the Homeless in 1986. "He was single-handedly responsible for homelessness as we know it today -- and he did it to feed the wealthy and the Pentagon."
Among Messman's first acts with his union was taking over empty houses to claim them for homeless people; oddly enough, one of the first he barricaded himself in turned out to be owned by Robin Orr, the former press secretary for first lady Nancy Reagan. He laughs about it today, but the laugh only goes so far.
"Once you cut housing programs that far, it's just about impossible to bring them back," said Messman, who now is homeless action coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee and editor of the Street Spirit homelessness newspaper in Oakland. "Reagan made homelessness permanent," he said.
Some experts contend, however, that Reagan was not entirely responsible for the crisis -- that homelessness emerged as an unfortunate consequence of the nation's shift toward personal responsibility after finding President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" policies wanting. It's not like Reagan wanted homelessness, they say.
"In the 1970s and early '80s, we said if we kept converting low-income housing into condos and co-ops, we would have a shortage of affordable housing and homeless people would be in the streets, and we got scoffed at -- but it was by both Democrats and Republicans," said Nan Roman, a longtime advocate for poverty relief who is president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "The politics of individual administrations certainly contributed, but there's plenty of blame to go around through Congress and every president that followed Reagan."
Barry Bosworth, a former economist for President Jimmy Carter who is now at the Brookings Institution, even maintains that the man who ousted his former boss from the White House was well-intentioned in encouraging people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps instead of depending on their government.
"And in the end, if you were a taxpayer it was a pretty good deal," he said. "But if you were unemployed and homeless, it was not a good deal."
Marty Fleetwood, who co-founded the HomeBase homelessness resource and study center in San Francisco in 1986 and still runs it, said Reagan was "the turning point for the crisis. . . . but there's no sense in having negative sentiment toward him now."
"He was just the guy on watch at the time, he had that ideology, and he's left us with a legacy that we're still struggling with," she said. "So really, we need to look ahead instead of back." Then she chuckled.
"I'd like to imagine wherever he went, though, he's like some Dickens character bent over with a cane, saying, 'Oh my gosh, what did I do?' " Fleetwood said. "Would that just be divine justice? He wakes up in heaven and says, 'Oh no, I didn't mean that to happen. Can't we do something?' "
[/quote:c5f48]
If that doesn't explian it enough then I don't know what will. The fact you just merely dissmissed this fact. It doesn't matter how high interest rates are to the poor who
don't own friggin housing these people rent low budget and for the most part are on welfare, now when you cut a large majority of welfare people end up on the streets. The article points out above more in detail of what he did. Not so stupid now is it ? Now to add to this, this does not mean Regan could have been entirely responsible but in all honest opinions, I beleive he did move the salt and was the "major factor in this" not just the only factor.
3. in relation to number 3. Ronnie" as you call him should of had control of his congressional spending, simply to put it he supported all of this spending, its not like he was sitting their saying "hey guyz don't fucking put naother 200billion into the militarys blah blah blah. He supported this, with might i add
"his majority congress of republicans As for the tax cuts, its the fact that while a 1 % tax cut for someone on a low income will not make a huge diffrence a 1 % tax cut on corporations and the wealthy saves them MILLIONS" these millions of dollers are more valueble then the small break the low income end just got. WHy not give the poor bigger taxs breaks then the higher income citizens and the corporations lower ones. 1 % for us meansnothing for the rich it means a lot. Thats whats meant. jeez.
as for 4......
that inflation rate still effects me today it will effect us most liekly forever so telling me its none of my buisness is a bunch of bunk. As for the deregulation of corporate America..COnrad Black (former Canadian), Enron Exec's, (THat giant tele communications company that i forget its name. all great examples of this deregulation. The fact is your not really telling us why this deregulation is good in your eyes your just saying what ??... then you start ragging on again about the inflation and 20 % interest rates. what did this deregulation have to do with actual lowering of rates themselves ? to this date i say this privatization of public utility's and programs such as welfare are one of the worst possible things for the people themselves.
Have you seen what major corporations foreign policy lately of the past 20 years ? Hell it almost as bad as the US Government's Foreign policy.
-Your accusing Liberals of bending the facts when your bending them quite boldy rigth here. I hope you notice this yourself. I noticed you also skipped over the arguements the author of that article presented in order to find weaker points to pick on. such as the ones detailing the involvement he had in the Clark Kerr's resignation, and the whole McCarthy which hunt for commies. Again this way of argueing is not all that great.
Colonel I have to thank you for giving this a more civil reply then a lot of the other forum goers here.
As for the assholes saying im just some disrespectful ignorant prick,
Suck my fucking dick, you mother fuckers. Colonel owns all your asses. Take a lesson from him. Your all riding him right now.
yes may Mr Regan RIP....but he doesn't deserve glorification as what he is getting right now. Hell maybe all of this current glory he is getting is just another way for Cnn and other major news cast to getm ore ratings....But thats another thread and another topic.
06-20-2004, 10:14 PM
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