Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 31, 2016

The Lords can only delay the “poll tax,” not stop it.

Google Thatcher Community Tax, commonly known as Poll Tax.

Good to live in a county where “the little people” are just children, not an hereditary class of humans.

There are plenty of little people here. We will soon have many more under trump.

Thatcher WAS the “little people.”

Thatcher helped to poison the economy of the UK her and those who are like her who followed messed it up grandly. Like it was done here by Reagan and his adherents.

It is hard to believe anyone in the middle class would want to go for Reagan or thatcher. Yet, here we are, years later and the republicans seem to channel the home alone kid. Have you had enough pain or are ya thirsty for more?

“Reagan made you feel good, and you didn’t have to be good.” Larry King (good friend of Nancy Reagan)

montessoriteacher said,

“It is hard to believe anyone in the middle class would want to go for Reagan or thatcher.”

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Yes, I know.

You think the rank and file are too stupid to vote reasonably because for some reason unbeknownst to you, we did.

As Cromwell said, “think it possible that you may be mistaken.”

Ah well, I shall try again to explain part of it.

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Before Reagan, inflation was reducing the value of everybody’s money and high interest was eating up what remained.

The unemployment rate was very high.

Americans were being held hostage by a country most had never heard of and our President seemed helpless to help them.

The Soviet Empire was expanding and threatening to take over the world.

People were telling us we had to embrace Soviet Socialism as the wave of the future.

President Carter assured us everything was just going to get worse.

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The person running against President Carter was somebody NOT Jimmy Carter.

In desperation a bare plurality went for him.

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Inflation fell, unemployment fell, interest rates fell, Soviet imperialism stalled, they were named as the evil empire they were and the Berlin Wall was declared a monument to their failure since it was used to keep people IN, verifiable steps were made to reduce the threat of nuclear vaporization, pride in our flawed people rose.

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We liked the improvements.

Our futures looked not just better, but imaginable.

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You can say none of that happened or mattered, but voters get to decide what matters to them — like survival.

Jack’s World said,

@DavidHuieGreen

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“Don’t forget the “Reagan Democrats”.”

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How could I forget myself?

If you were a millionaire or billionaire, it made sense to be for Reagan. If you were middle class, not so much.

montessoriteacher said,

“If you were a millionaire or billionaire, it made sense to be for Reagan. If you were middle class, not so much.”

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Stuck on money when folks back then were watching their money shrink in value while fearing death from above and a government treaty-bound to not even try to protect them.

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Priorities !

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You have yours, the senseless millions without millions had ours.

Jack’s World said,

@DavidHuieGreen

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“Don’t forget the misery index and how it changed from Ford to Carter to Reagan.”

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I haven’t.

From Reagan’s 1988 Convention speech:

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“And then there was the misery index. That was an election year gimmick they designed for the 1976 campaign. They added the unemployment and inflation rates. And it came to 13.4 percent in 1976, and they declared that our candidate, Jerry Ford, had no right to seek re-election with that kind of misery index.

But 4 years later, in the 1980 campaign, they didn’t mention the misery index. Do you suppose it was because it was no longer 13.4 percent? In those 4 years it had become almost 21 percent.

And last month, in Atlanta at their convention, there was again no mention of the misery index. Why? Because right now it’s less than 9.2 percent.

Facts are stubborn things."

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By the way, my beloved President Obama does well with an MI of 6.29, even better than my beloved President Reagan.

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“The misery index as of December 2016 (based on the most recent official government data for the 12 months ending in November) is at

6.29% (4.6% unemployment and 1.69% inflation ) down from last month’s 6.46% and well below the peak of 12.87% in both October and November 2011 which was pretty miserable."

http://inflationdata.com/articles/misery-index/