Reply #146: Reagan - No wonder the rich adore him!

[1776Forever]

When 1980 rolled around I had no idea that Reagan had a plan to get "rid" of the totally disabled in the United States that received Social Security Disability. My husband was taken off of it without any notice. This sure looks a lot like Bush is trying to do in 2009 budget!

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1000edit.htm

Social Security, the Stock Market,
and the Elections
by The Editors

*snip

Enter Reaganomics

The first major confrontation over Social Security occurred in the early 1980s during the Reagan presidency. Reagan had promised to balance the federal budget. But the budget that he sent to Congress in 1981, because of the heavy expenditure on the military, would have led to record deficits, despite deep cuts in social expenditures. David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, decided that the only possibility of avoiding these huge deficits would be to raid Social Security. Rather than state this openly in the budget, however, he included forty billion dollars in "future savings to be identified." As Stockman later admitted, this was nothing but a euphemism for budgetary reductions to be won by "storming the twin citadels of Social Security and Medicare" (Stockman, The Triumph of Politics, p. 124-125). The Reagan administration's frontal assault on Social Security began on May 12, 1981. It included substantial reductions in benefits for those seeking early retirement at age sixty-two, plus cuts in basic benefits—altogether forty-five billion dollars in "savings." The Democrats, looking for political capital, rallied within days in defense of Social Security and, with public opinion solidly behind them, were able inflict the first major defeat on the Reagan administration.