Prickly City by Scott Stantis for April 22, 2021

Old “Triple the National Debt” Ronnie? Old “Trading Arms to the Ayatollah” Ronnie? Those values?

Ronald Reagan destroyed the middle class. He gave billionaires tax breaks and gave the bill to American workers. Before Reagan a person could have a house and family with one job. Greedy corporations pay less than unemployment benefits. She will always vote for the people who are trying to kill her with her tax dollars.

Ronald Reagan of Carmen’s dreams never ran the first time, he is a rose-colored revisionist view of the actor they hired to play a president. The only good thing is they thought they had to keep the government in working order then. Now they don’t bother.

Today’s Republican Party would declare Reagan a RINO and have nothing to do with him. Support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants? Endorsing some gun control? They’d treat him like they did John McCain.

Ronald Reagan was an economic disaster. His policies are STILL hurting us. And his making Americans hate their own Government may yet cause the end of the United States.

In the nation I grew up in, those awful Government programs put a man on the moon, laid the interstate, built huge hydro-electric dams, developed the internet, electrified rural America, and split the atom. A third of the private workforce was unionized. We had strongly progressive taxation. And America THRIVED.

Now the nations of Europe – whom we call “socialist” – have shot ahead of us in innovation and technology. They have internet speeds four times faster than we do. They have the high-speed rail. They have the state-of-the-art dams. They are developing inexhaustible energy sources while we refuse to stop digging coal out of the ground.

But in the United States, we can’t fix a stinking bridge anymore, because some billionaire might lose his almighty tax cut, and that’s the ONLY thing that matters. We make educators making $50,000 a year take a 20% pay cut so that people making $50,000,000 a year don’t have to take a 3% tax hike. It doesn’t even make BAD sense.

The United States used to lead the world in damned near everything. After 40 years of Reaganomics and tax cuts for billionaires, we now lead the world in damned near nothing.

To paraphrase Reagan, “Are we better off now than we were 35 years ago?”

Though less vociferously, and with less bile, the Left and the mainstream media were saying the same things about Ronald Reagan as they said about Donald Trump, George H. Bush and George W. Bush…

Mr. Stantis, you have got one serious following of Democrats. I can only figure that when Carmen gets to vote again she will have a hard choice on candidates unless she once again goes third party which she will again get lectured about how that is a wasted vote. It is my dilemma as well.

A word to the wise, Carmen: Ignore what they say and pay close attention to what they do.

Reagan lovers don’t need Reagan himself, even if he were still alive. They need his handlers, who were doing most of the actual governing for him once his Alzheimer’s set in.

I’m going to run…away…

Reagan was not a good president.

I liked when the first Bush called trickledown “voodoo economics” when he was running against Raygun.

The country doesn’t need any more discounted generic jellybeans, so no Reagan. (Thank god or whomever.)

1. We also suffered economic hardship as result of arms race. 1a. “Star Wars” was a different system than we have in place today. 2. Every GOP admn. increases deficit while every Dem admn. decreases it. 2a. Clinton (Wm Jeff ended w/surplus ((blown by G W Bush.) 3. Reagan helped set the stage for G W Bush & Trump.

So, what is your tolerance level for pure idiot right-wing populist?

I voted for Gerry Ford in 1976, Phil Crane in 1980 and Pete Buttigieg in 2020. All the rest of my presidential votes have been votes ‘against’.