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There are quite a number of good articles on the subject if you want a thorough answer, but some of the main things are:
He's responsible for a massive deregulation of financial institutions that were a precursor to the Wall Street issues that led to the giant government bailout.
He pushed "trickle down economics," which is the theory that if you cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, they'll succeed more and create more jobs so that everyone wins. This is something conservatives always push and it's always a horrible failure that results in a bigger and bigger income gap.
He funded his big tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy) by slashing federal assistance programs, including low income housing subsidies and mental health support, resulting in an unprecedented surge in homelessness that we're still wrestling with today.
Nancy Reagan was the "Just say no to drugs" lady - the figurehead of the largely failed war on drugs which was like trying to prevent teen pregnancy with an abstinence only education program.
There's a lot more, but those are some of the big ticket items.
Reagan was massively anti-labor and oversaw the air traffic controller strike and fired employees who were striking for better wages and conditions. It was a harbinger of things to come for labor unions, many of which were then so gutted by outsourcing and neoliberal Clinton passing NAFTA, the single most anti-union, anti-middle class piece of law ever. Reagan set the table against labor, Clinton and the Dems delivered the death blow. Organized labor now only accounts for less than 10% of jobs in the US, and only with Coronavirus-driven alignment and efforts is labor finally starting to regain its legs. 40 years Reagan helped kill the American middle class.
I almost added a bullet about killing unions, but it was hard to know where to stop. He also wasn't great for the environment, but I think it's generally accepted that he wasn't the environmental train wreck that people thought he'd be.
The Gays would kindly ask this list include the HIV crises.
Thank you!
Trickle down economics, which is the "Horse and Sparrow" economic theory. Also known as "Let the masses eat shit".
Yes definitely "some". One rather big one though that I'd like to add.
Reagan was a sponsor of international terror. Selling arms to iran. Circumventing a US embargo.To arm Nicaraguan rebels, trying to overthrow the government that had ended the American occupation. Training and arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Who were part of a group many might recognize al'queda. Run by some guy called Osama Bin'laden. I think I've heard of him maybe..... All because "the commies" whom Regan and all Americans were pavlovianly trained to become apoplectic about at the mere mention. Marched into Afghanistan, failing and flailing much like the United States just finished doing. And that's only two of the bigger ones.
Also it bares repeating but Reagan has a large part of the blame for the aids epidemic nationally like Mike Pence did in Indiana. Simply because they were both raging homophobic racist bigots.
The HUD rigging scandal was another good one. Did I mention Reagan was a hyper partisan dog whistling racist bigot yet? Either way it's not repeated enough. Rewarding HUD contracts to Republican doners as quid pro quo.
Sooooooooo many scandals at the EPA.
Savings and loan scandal. A nice cancerous outcropping of Reagan's deregulation that still harrows us to this day.
He's literally a bottomless pit of harm and scandal.
Don't forget destroying the budget of mental health facilities, causing people to be sent out on the streets in droves, without resources. That is the biggest reason for our homeless crisis to this day.
💯! Reagan was a modern Republican through and through. There was almost nothing he touched or even looked at that didn't suffer for it. It says a lot that his biological son named after him, disassociated from him so much. And only his adopted son carried on dealing with the cults perpetuating the misplaced hero worship.
What about the cut on public education spending? Because Reagan was afraid that educated young people will rebeal against the government. Fuck Reagan