Imagine being unemployed during a recession under a Reagan administration

[NNN0LHI]

http://home.att.net/~howingtons/gop/rr/rr.htm

"It's difficult to believe that people are still starving in this
country because food isn't available.

President Reagan tells a $2,500-per-ticket
GOP fundraiser in Cincinnati about a letter from
a blind supporter. "He wrote in Braille,"
the President claims, "to tell me that if
cutting his pension would help get this
country back on its feet, he'd like to have me
cut his pension."
Reagan 11/30/1981

"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to
take care of itself."
Ronald Reagan

One problem that we've had, even in the best of times,
is the people sleeping on the grates, the homeless who
are homeless, you might say, by choice.
Reagan 1/31/84

"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." '76

"Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and
discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to
traditional proportionate taxation? ...
Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents
of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile,
so close to slipping from our grasp."

"Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think
we're going to succeed"
Ronald Reagan

"Unemployment insurance is a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders."
Reagan
Source:http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/e081280.htm

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I can remember when the Dems had to kiss Reagans ass and give him anything he wanted just to get me and the other millions of unemployed people a 13-week unemployment extension. Anyone else remember that horror show?

Don

[AllentownJake]

1. Fine by me

Right now, the government would have fallen 3 months ago.

[ixion]

2. Easy to do

I was, for the most part.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. 8.5% unemployment under Reagan

where were the Teabaggies?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. I feel for today's college grads because that's where I was 30 years ago.

[livetohike]

5. My husband and I were unemployed various times during

Reagan's regime. We moved all over the country chasing jobs. What should have been a good decade in our lives (we were in our 30's), turned out to be one of the worse. I hated everything he stood for. His policies caused a lot of hurt in my hometown of Pittsburgh, but we were only able to live there briefly in 1983 - long enough to know there was no future for us there.

[madrchsod]

6. it took another irishman to sum up reagan`s 1980`s....

that`s right...simply red`s.."money to tight to mention"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9-s79Ek1CE&feature=related

we`ve come a long way baby....right back to where it started.......



we`re the 80`s grand....i did`t find a job for 8 yrs.

[izquierdista]

7. Imagine?

Don't need to; I remember 1982 quite well.

[WhiteTara]

8. one Thanksgiving weekend he initiated

tax on unemployment benefits.

[raccoon]

9. I don't have to imagine it, I experienced it. nt

[juno jones]

10. As another member of the 1980's Reagan diaspora:

Fuck him.

His policies have left a toxic legacy for our own children.

[dysfunctional press]

11. "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."

well- that's kinda true- the new deal came about because without it, we could have slid into fascism.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. I had just come out of graduate school when the Reagan recession hit

I signed up with every temp agency in town and was lucky to get called 3 times a week.

At the time, Minneapolis had OFFICIAL 11% unemployment (most likely more of course, since people like me weren't counted).

A new B. Dalton opened downtown and 200 people applied for 8 jobs. I was one of them, and I found myself sitting next to people with unemployed librarians and schoolteachers as I filled out the forms.

[sandnsea]

13. Oh yeah. I lived under a tarp for a while

They tried to tell me that it was shelter for me and my 3 year old, in order to deny me any assistance. I remember Reagan. There are 3 tiers of extensions now, plus an extra $25, and DUers still complain. It's quite shocking to me.

[lonestarnot]

14. oh that tricky trickle again.

[dajoki]

15. I remember it well...

I lost a very good job because of Raygun's union busting tactics. And we were extremely lucky to finally get our UC benefits after a very long wait.

[NNN0LHI]

17. Usually by the time he would get around to signing an extension I was out of UC benefits for months

If it hadn't been for my UAW Supplemental Unemployment Benefits we would have starved.

Don

[dajoki]

21. Those days were tough...

I was in the UMWA, Trumka was president at the time, and we did not have strike fund to fall back on. So we all felt very fortunate to finally get approved for UC. I was raising a young family then and I didn't know where we were going to end up. After about two years a new, non union company took over the job and things went downhill from there as far as pay and working conditions.

[guitar man]

16. I don't have to imagine

I was unemployed under that schmuck...and homeless for part of that time. :grr:

[eShirl]

18. I also remember 4 years before he was elected, he was considered a fringe crackpot.

A cautionary note for today...

[ThomWV]

19. I don't have to imagine - I was unemployed during Reagan's Presidency.

[kentuck]

20. I remember it well...

After the Air Traffic Controllers were fired and companies started laying off, the average worker was concerned that he might never get another job. He was willing to sacrifice a lot to maintain his present position. It was devastating for the average working person. Then, Reagan had the gall to tax their unemployment benefits after they lost their jobs. We never recovered from Ronald Reagan's mindset toward labor.