About 20 minutes into the interview you can hear exactly what obama said to the Reno Gazette Jounal, it was definately positive for the republicans and dissed the Carter administration. Whether he meant to say the last 10 or 15 years, which means Bush or he meant to say 20 to 25 years ago and meant Reagan ( which I believe he actually meant, since that is who he was discussing) his vision of them was definately positive.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026Since I believe he was discussing Reagan and for those of you who maybe were not around during those days, here is an article about Reagan and his policies.
President Ronald Reagan was given the honor of The Greatest American Ever as the result of a poll conducted in cooperation with a Discovery Channel presentation that narrowed down the candidates for that particular honor. According to many of those who defend this choice, Reagan deserves this honor in part because he brought back a sense of respect to Americans following the Vietnam War, Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis. According to Reagan's own campaign slogan for the 1984 election, thanks to the previous four years of his Presidency, it was morning again in American.
Maybe someone just misspelled "mourning." The budget deficit explosion that occurred during the 1980s were a direct result of President Reagan's tax cuts, and the resulting lack of available funds that could have been earmarked toward social programs contributed to the continuing deconstruction of American social programs. Reagan's assault on these programs took as its starting point the conservative ideological foundation that if people rely upon government welfare strategies to provide them with such things as food, housing and help taking care of their children it will serve as a disincentive for them to work; therefore the less the government helps the poor, ultimately the more they will help themselves and the better off they will be.
President Reagan was a firm believer in this methodology and almost from the moment he took his oath of office set to work dismantling government entitlement programs. The first major step toward rolling back opportunities for those not lucky enough to be born into wealth took place when he signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA). OBRA served to cut federal funding programs for the poor as well as inducements for states to provide funding. Unfortunately, cutting funding for programs was not enough to revolutionize the welfare programs in the way that conservative ideologues desired. In order to completely undermine the progressive system of entitlements to the poor, the Reagan administration began to use tax reform as a method of undercutting welfare.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/19457/ronald_reagan_budget_cuts_deficit_spending.htmlHere is another article:
<snip>
True to his word, Reagan cut funding from many social welfare programs including food stamp programs, and various programs to assist for struggling mothers and children. During Reagan's first few years in office, the government cut welfare program spending by over $20 billion a year. He also succeeded in slashing taxes to a point where the government was barely collecting any income revenue. Americans loved the tax cuts, but it was not necessarily good for them. Without tax revenues, the government was unable to pay for the services it provided. Worse, even though Reagan dramatically reduced tax rates, he actually dramatically increased total government spending, particularly in the areas of defense, and ironically, social welfare programs. Although Congress cut billions of dollars a year from the social welfare agenda, the rate of spending was still increasing. The American President Biography series noted that social welfare spending increased between 1980 and 1988 from $313 billion a year to $533 billion a year.
Because government revenue (taxes) did not equal government spending, the government was forced to borrow money each year. The national debt skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, almost $1 trillion. As a result, people in all sectors lost their jobs and inflation soared. The economic hardships of the time became evident in the stock market crash of 1987, one of the worst stock market crashes since the crash of 1929. Many historians and economists blame Reagan's 'voodoo economic' policies and extreme deficit spending for the crash and economic hardships, although that conclusion is debatable.
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/reagan/section8.rhtmlHe was
not about the people, he was about the corporations. He did change the trajectory of the United States. For the better? :puke:
P.S. 14 minutes into interview, Obama discusses healthcare, he has yet to clarify what meant by, "we will have to make
difficult choices in terms of end of life care" 5 days 4 phone calls, 7 emails.
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