Letter to the Editor

Your view: Reagan and money

Monday, July 12, 2004

Some have raised the issue of placing Ronald Reagan's likeness on our $10 bill. Reagan's likeness should never be put on any U.S. currency. His likeness should be put on the mountain of debts he piled up and irresponsibly walked away from with a good-humored joke. The Republicans borrow but never pay it back.

Reagan's likeness should be placed on the S&Ls that went belly-up under his deregulations and how were they bailed out? You've already guessed it. He borrowed it and charged it to future citizens. Put his likeness on the Farm and Home Administration that, under him, went broke but had shown a profit every year since Roosevelt founded it in 1934.

Put his likeness on the minimum wage which Reagan cruelly and hard-heartedly denied these millions of hardworking Americans a single penny increase in his 8-year reign of terror. Put his likeness on the hungry kids who were supposed to feed on the crumbs that trickled down from the rich people's table but with a new wave of greed they kept the crumbs also. Put Reagan's likeness in big bold neon lights on the bridges, old cars and abandoned buildings that the poor people lived in whom he made homeless.

Put Reagan's likeness on the Japanese currency and especially the $2 million payoff they gave him for the privilege of looting America. Put his likeness on the foreign balance of trade deficit which his policies created. Because of that, enormous foreign debt the equivalent of 1 1/2 Mississippi counties each day falls into the ownership of foreigners. We pay out billions each year in interest to foreigners who are helping to finance and our deficit spending.

This year alone, President Bush will run a deficit equal to or greater than the total deficits run up by Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter since 1940. I ask you, who is the Liberal Party and who is the Conservative Party? Are you beginning to get the picture?

When citizens no longer value the welfare of future citizens, then that nation is doomed. Someday someone will have to face the financial disaster created by Reagan, Bush and Bush and they will not be able to clean up that financial mess with a good-humored joke that leaves the people laughing and feeling good.

Finally, put Reagan's likeness on the Boy Scout fund as a taker, not a giver. In 1983, while president, he charged $7,500 to appear at two Boy Scout fund-raisers in California. Is character shining here? Talk about compassion, Wowee!

W.T. Woods