What Are the Bad Things That Ronald Reagan Did During His
Presidency?
I know the good things, I just need as many bad things as possible for a school project.
(Ignorant 16-year-old)
Asker...
Deregulation of the banking industry and supply side economics led to our current
debacle.
Iran contra comes to mind as well.
Cut and ran from Lebanon after our Marine Corps barracks in Beirut was bombed.
Refused to allow federal federal funding for aids research until a courageous young man named Ryan White publicly shamed him into reversing his position that aids was god's punishment for homosexuality and therefore trying to treat it like it was against god's will.
He gutted federal funding programs for poor college students.
Fired the air traffic controllers and deregulated the airline industry, resulting in a massive increase in air traffic fatalities.
He laid a wreath at the tomb of an unknown German SS soldier from WW2, but declined
to visit a nearby concentration camp.
He proclaimed that trees caused air pollution and that ketchup was a vegetable.
eliminated federal funding for planned parenthood. about the same time, infant mortality
rates in america began to skyrocket... i believe this was due to the fact that planned
parenthood provided the only source of pre-natal medical care in poor neighborhoods
(they aren't JUST an abortion provider). in 1980, the USA had the second lowest infant
mortality rate in the world. today, we're ranked 39th. myrrdin_...
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Other Answers (12)
reduced federal funding for inexpensive social programs like head start by 90%. the kids
who grew up without these during the 80's went on to become the crack kingpins of the
90's.
Encouraged Americans to hate poor people with his speeches about "fur coat-wearing
welfare queens picking up their food stamps in limousines". this claim was later
debunked as an out-and-out lie.
Nearly got us all killed when he made his famous "open mic" gaffe, saying "i've just
signed a bill outlawing russia. we begin bombing in 5 minutes." russia was listening and immediately jumped to their version of def-con 2. we haven't been that close to nuclear annihilation since the cuban missile crisis.
Began the tradition of doubling the national debt during republican administrations.
national debt when he took office stood at $900 billion. when he left, it was $2.1 trillion.
I could continue this all day, but this should be enough to send you scurrying for sources to support or refute my points.
Justine...
Reagan rebuked his own surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, for advocating the use of condoms to prevent transmission of the disease.
You're cute, but you can't have it both ways. You can't criticize people for not using
condoms at the same time you criticize a man for advocating their use.
Michelob...
He had members of his 1980 campaign staff contact Iran, and told them if they would be
willing to hold onto the US embassy hostages until after the US election (he defeated
Carter), then the US would send them missiles.
He ignored, delayed, and didn't fund the growing AIDS epidemic research.
Reaganomics. This so-called economic concept of Ronald Reagan was that if you cut
taxes you would increase Federal Revenues since economic activity would increase.
That has been proven false over the long term.
Gregory...
The War on Americans, I mean Drugs comes to mind. By attacking marijuana as a drug
on par with heroin, Reagan created a campaign that has cost tax payers BILLIONS of
dollars and led to millions of Americans being prosecuted for doing nothing wrong.
There is not one single reported case of someone dying from long term marijuana use.
Unlike alcohol or tobacco. There were numerous studies to prove the marijuana is
harmless, but Reagan ignored those in a typical Republican fashion. Americans are still paying for his dishonesty and mistakes.
Bopped...
During the campaign he sent envoys to Iran to promise them parts for their military
equipment if they kept the American Hostages jailed until after the 1980 election.
He funded this and an illegal war in Central America by getting involved in the drug
business, the Iran Contra Scandal.
When you are done with that you may want to look up the Savings and Loan scandal.
The S&L industry looted the US treasury.
David J...
He started America on it's current trajectory of ballooning foreign debt.
Clinton did start to turn things around until Bush No.2 came along.
With the mess he left the economy in, Obama has had no choice but to spend to try to dig America out of it.
It's ironic that so many Republicans are frothing at the mouth about the increasing public debt under Obama when it's almost exclusively due to Republican presidents that
BlueChristy...
"Black Monday" the day the stock market crashed under Reagan.
Reagan also cut public funding to mental hospitals with a very tragic result in the fact that many mental patients were literally tuned out onto the cold hard street. Ironic Reagan himself suffered from the mental disease of Alzheimer's after that.
There is nothing that can top that in my opinion except for the fact the the so called
Trickle down economic theory does not work and the tax breaks to big corporations just
end up in their off shore tax free bank accounts any way instead of creating more jobs
Dr.R. Luxemberg...
Invaded Grenada, Armed the Contras in Nicaragua, failed to budget money for HIV, he
was anti-labor as for example breaking the airline controllers union, he cut welfare
benefits and in the process mocking a woman as a welfare queen. Made deals with Iran
to not release the hostages until after the election, in exchange for arms so that he
could, take credit. Corruption in foreign policy with some of those indicted being Sec of State George Schultz, Elliott Abrams, and Col. Oliver North.
He placed a wreath on the grave of an SS soldier in Germany.
Hohn M...
Mislead or miscalculated about the impact of his tax cuts and overall impact of his
economic policies. We were told that his policies would produce a balanced budget by
the end of his first term (oops he missed by $2 trillion).
Funded the Contras, illegally, while they were killing innocent people and Americans.
Did nothing to prevent the S & L crash (costing taxpayers hundreds of million dollars)
even when warned the crash was about to happen. There's more but I can't type!
SO...
Reaganomics (which we are paying for now). The idea that giving even more money to
the most wealthy in this country, and somehow it will trickle down was the biggest con
Ronnie played on the American people. The continuation of this flawed thinking has
continued through Bush, Clinton, and Bush.. and is evident in some of things Obama
has done as well. Bottom line on that is that since Reagan, wages have moved steadily
downwards for working Americans, to now. While on the flip side, the wealthiest
Americans have made tremendous gains in personal wealth. From 2001-2008 alone,
the wealthiest 400 people in this country saw their collective wealth increase by around 700 billion dollars.
Ridiculous tax cuts on the wealthiest (part of Reaganomics).
Iran Contra... lots of info out there about that.
Manipulating the Iran hostage crisis (which I would call treasonous, but did swing the
election from Carter to him).
Started the whole idea of underfunding government programs, then a couple years down the road and say, "look government can't do anything right."
