Reagan would be in political turmoil today
By
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To the editor:
I am writing concerning a number of things. First, the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth has just past and Republicans and conservatives are praising his presidency.
However, if Reagan was around now, he would be in big political trouble. Reagan was a serial tax raiser and raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office.
During his time in office he tripled the deficit to $3 trillion. He grew the size of the federal government by adding the Department of Veteran Affairs at a cost of $90 billion and 300,000 employees. Reagan wanted a world free of all nuclear weapons and he gave 3 million undocumented immigrants amnesty. I doubt Tea Partiers would be very happy.
Second, no one enjoys paying taxes and I certainly object to paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to support the military industrial complex. However, as a share of the nation’s economy, the federal government’s take in taxes this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was starting. Also, for the third year in a row American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under President Bush.
Third, there's something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be so hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population that thought like this, but the U.S. is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor.
Most conservatives and Republicans are big fans of Ayn Rand and her novels, especially "Atlas Shrugged." They are big supporters of her “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the undeserving poor but the middle class as well.
Rand, famously a believer in rugged individualism and personal responsibility, was a strong defender of self-interest. She was a staunch opponent of government programs from the New Deal and Social Security to the Great Society and Medicare. The only problem is that in the end she was a hypocrite. Instead of remaining true to her principles, she took Social Security and Medicare when she became ill. Like so many conservatives it is "do as I say, not as I do."
Sincerely,
John P. Hiestand
Hillsboro[[In-content Ad]]
I am writing concerning a number of things. First, the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth has just past and Republicans and conservatives are praising his presidency.
However, if Reagan was around now, he would be in big political trouble. Reagan was a serial tax raiser and raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office.
During his time in office he tripled the deficit to $3 trillion. He grew the size of the federal government by adding the Department of Veteran Affairs at a cost of $90 billion and 300,000 employees. Reagan wanted a world free of all nuclear weapons and he gave 3 million undocumented immigrants amnesty. I doubt Tea Partiers would be very happy.
Second, no one enjoys paying taxes and I certainly object to paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to support the military industrial complex. However, as a share of the nation’s economy, the federal government’s take in taxes this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was starting. Also, for the third year in a row American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under President Bush.
Third, there's something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be so hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population that thought like this, but the U.S. is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor.
Most conservatives and Republicans are big fans of Ayn Rand and her novels, especially "Atlas Shrugged." They are big supporters of her “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the undeserving poor but the middle class as well.
Rand, famously a believer in rugged individualism and personal responsibility, was a strong defender of self-interest. She was a staunch opponent of government programs from the New Deal and Social Security to the Great Society and Medicare. The only problem is that in the end she was a hypocrite. Instead of remaining true to her principles, she took Social Security and Medicare when she became ill. Like so many conservatives it is "do as I say, not as I do."
Sincerely,
John P. Hiestand
Hillsboro[[In-content Ad]]