Wow, looks like we are still BAILING out the VICTIMS 25 years later. I wonder if conservatives here wish the government would treat the unemployed with this kind of conservatism? I could have collected a large unemployment check every month for five years and when my job skills had deteriorated, I could be declared a 'victim' and President Ronald Reagan would mandate an even bigger check, a so-called 'bailout' from the federal government, perhaps several hundred grand. And now, in the year 2012, with farm subsidy handouts and ethanol mandates peaked at $35 billion a year, are we any closer to a free market in agriculture?

I read 'An American Life, Ronald Reagan - the autobiography.' I thought that there would be no better way to learn about small government, free market conservatism than from the Gipper himself. I was shocked to read this on pages 344 and 345. "Through it all, the farmers who suffered most were those who had been encouraged to overproduce by the billions of dollars available in federal subsidies." and, "In the farm crisis of the mid-eighties we gave farmers more billions than any administration in history. I believed the government had an obligation to help bail out the victims, then to work to return farming to the free market."

Wow, looks like we are still BAILING out the VICTIMS 25 years later. I wonder if conservatives here wish the government would treat the unemployed with this kind of conservatism? I could have collected a large unemployment check every month for five years and when my job skills had deteriorated, I could be declared a 'victim' and President Ronald Reagan would mandate an even bigger check, a so-called 'bailout' from the federal government, perhaps several hundred grand. And now, in the year 2012, with farm subsidy handouts and ethanol mandates peaked at $35 billion a year, are we any closer to a free market in agriculture?

I read 'An American Life, Ronald Reagan - the autobiography.' I thought that there would be no better way to learn about small government, free market conservatism than from the Gipper himself. I was shocked to read this on pages 344 and 345. "Through it all, the farmers who suffered most were those who had been encouraged to overproduce by the billions of dollars available in federal subsidies." and, "In the farm crisis of the mid-eighties we gave farmers more billions than any administration in history. I believed the government had an obligation to help bail out the victims, then to work to return farming to the free market."

Only a Marxist would use language like 'starvation wages.' Who is Ronald Reagan to dictate to companies what the prevailing wage should be? I can tell you this, only Marxists talk like this! Ronald Reagan has no respect for the free market concept of supply and demand.

True conservatives are tired of Republicans "swooning" every time Ronald Reagan is mentioned. I title this clip "Is Ronald Reagan a Marxist?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_zNR53k5Lg ...shockingly, Ronald Reagan expressed some Marxist thoughts starting at 1:50 and says, "there is another type of employer we should be concerned about, and these are the employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they, then hire, these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think of as normal and natural for workers in our country."

1. Ronald Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan "signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then." Meanwhile, state spending doubled. As president, Reagan "raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office," including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan "a dear friend," told NPR, "Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration - I was there." "Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes," said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan's memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is "false mythology," Brinkley said.

In fact, Reagan's decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden's ascendancy.

10. Ronald Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Taliban and Osama Bin Laden - a prominent mujahidin commander - emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services' close relations to these fighters.

2. Ronald Reagan tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to $3 trillion, "roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether." Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980's did little help them. "Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled," the New York Times' David Leonhardt noted.