CNN Smears Reagan Legacy; Touts 'A Lot of People Who Were Suffering' Under Reagan
Their past antics might not lend them credibility as presidential critics, but CNN's Suzanne Malvaux and Carol Costello threw water on the GOP veneration of President Reagan on Friday. Echoing the liberal media of the Reagan years, the duo cast his conservative legacy as "revisionist history."
"And it's almost like revisionist history here. Back in the day, there were a lot of people who were suffering under the Reagan era," Malveaux insisted about GOP candidates invoking Reagan's name on the campaign trail. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]
Costello made the simplistic argument that "Mr. Reagan raised taxes," and thus would be at odds with Republicans today who want to cut taxes.
CNN, of course, failed to report the big picture of Reagan's presidency. During his tenure in office, the top income tax rate fell from 70 percent to 28 percent. Reagan also cut corporate tax rates and worked to simplify the tax code with the 1986 Tax Reform Act.
To read more, and for a full transcript, click here.
A brief transcript of the segment, which aired on January 27 at 11:05 a.m. EST, is as follows:
[11:05]
CAROL COSTELLO: Gingrich isn't the first politician to fight over who carries Reagan's mantle best, but does it really mean anything? Ronald Reagan is an icon, but he was elected president in the disco era. What, three decades ago? Many young Republican voters scratch their heads. They're into Ron Paul, and he barely mentions Ronald Reagan. And you could argue President Reagan dealt with the economic woes of his time in a way Republicans are not willing to do now. Mr. Reagan raised taxes.
(...)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX: It's interesting, Carol, you know. Because I remember Reagan, I was kind of a young person at the time. And it's almost like revisionist history here. Back in the day, there were a lot of people who were suffering under the Reagan era. Some people believe that this is now rewriting the history books, if you will, and as people's memories kind of tend to make it more, I guess, fantastical. Yeah.
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Comments
There are ALWAYS going to be
Submitted by okie-pastor on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 4:51pm.
There are ALWAYS going to be people suffering somewhere. The implication that Reagan caused the suffering is a flat out lie!
What's interesting is I heard on Limbaugh's show audio of George Soros suggesting Romney would be just like Obama. He doesn't seem to be worried if he wins the election. And that worries me!
Matthew 26:11
Submitted by almostacowboy on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:12pm.
For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.
Did Jesus know about Ronald Regan? Well, technically, yes. But, I don't think He had him in mind when he said that.
Reagan
Submitted by stan25 on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:31pm.
The Communist Clinton Network has it all wrong.The end of the disco era end in late 1979. That is when Jimmuh Carter was in the White House.
Reagan
Submitted by stan25 on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:29pm.
The Communist Clinton Network has it all wrong.The end of the disco era end in late 1979. That is when Jimmuh Carter was in the White House.
Lots of people are suffering under CNN's bs - Not Reagan legacy
Submitted by Gary Hall on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:57pm.
Well I won't Suzanne. It's you (and your Carol Costello road show) that is rewriting history.
Back in the days when Reagan was running for president, a many people were suffering and the country was under the dark weight of the Carter malaise. interest rates were sky high and rising; unemployment was sky high and rising; inflation was sky high and rising, and the country was at the brink of an historic double-dip recession.
Iran had our hostages. Saddam had invaded Iran. The Imperialist USSR had invaded Afghanistan, and the polar ice caps were re-freezing from the thaw a few decades earlier.
Let's not waste out time here paying tribute about how the hostages were released, how the economy recovered and turned into the great economic boom, or how the Soviets would fail in Afghanistan and then fail, or how the Iron Curtain would finally fall. Let's speak of how the black community, which is suffering horribly under Obama's policy changes, faired following Ronald Reagan's efforts.
Using Larry Elder's work here:
Under Reagan, black adult unemployment fell faster than did white unemployment," noted Los Angeles radio host Larry Elder in a 1999 op-ed for the Ethnic News Watch. "Black teenage unemployment fell faster than did white teenage unemployment. And blacks started businesses at a rate faster than that of whites.
"In 1981,the nation's poverty rate stood at 14 percent. It declined to 11.6 percent in 1988, Reagan's last year in office."
Media reports on the 1990 Census support Elder's claims.
"A set of minority economic profiles released by the Census Bureau show that black households had a median income of $19,758 at the time of the 1990 census, up 84% from 1980," noted the Associated Press in July 1992.
"During that period, white median household incomes climbed 68%." [..]
Allow me to phrase that in a different manner. Income amongst blacks made more important gains, than whites, during the Reagan years.
According to a 1990 report in the San Francisco Chronicle:
"High school graduation rates among black students rose substantially during the 1980s, narrowing an education gap with whites, according to a new federal study on U.S. school enrollments.
"About 75 percent of blacks ages 18 to 24 in 1988 reported that they were high school graduates. Ten years earlier, only 68 percent of blacks in this age group reported that they had high school diplomas. The proportion of whites who say they graduated from high school has held at about 82 percent."
Compliments of a NY Times article:
"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
Allow me to rephrase that one: The Clinton era was a very bad decade for young black men. Reagan era was good - Clinton era was bad.
And now - Obama era is bad - very bad.
The accompanying graphic, with that NY Times article, tells a very interesting tale, here's the link: Falling Behind.
While the graphics are a bit small - may I suggest that the reader look at the left side of each graph - at what was going on during the Carter years, leading up to the disaster that President Reagan inherited. Then look at the Reagan years - then the Clinton era.
(;~> gary
Work isn't the same as redistribution
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 6:32pm.
Maybe Malveaux considers getting a job and supporting yourself a bad thing, as compared to relying on the government for your livelihood. Working a full time job and taking care of your family and paying taxes on what you earn tends to turn people in to Republicans. The 80's were indeed a scary time for people like Malveaux.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
If Reagan had been like
Submitted by tcm14 on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 7:39pm.
If Reagan had been like Obama, he would have spent his time in office blaming everything on Jimmy Carter. But he never had to, because he fixed things.
I can't imagine how different the 80s would have been if we would have spent them listening to Reagan bitch about the mess that Carter created. Man, do we need Reagan now.
The moral equivalence willful derangement
Submitted by needle on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:58pm.
Leave it to a Liberal to grope at anything to justify his/her love for tyranny and its consequences.
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
Compared to what? When? Where? in history?
Submitted by krendler on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 7:22pm.
Try now. Present day USA as the comparison.
These people are certifiable idiots - and I'm not sure they could be any more partisan if they were Ed Schultz screaming at the camera on MS-DNC.
Malveaux is another product of nepotism
Submitted by frank14 on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 7:27pm.
Her well-connected mother brainwashed the poor girl with her left wing victicrat values.
There might actually some
Submitted by big.league.slider on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:32am.
There might actually some small kernel of truth in Ms. Malveaux's comment about her knowing people who suffered during Reagan's presidency. For example, maybe she knows many members of the liberal media that suffered severe mental anguish during that time. Or maybe she knew some striking air traffic controllers that Reagan rightfully fired. Or maybe she is referring to Walter Mondale, who took an electoral beating of historic proportions from Reagan in 1984. Or maybe she personally knew lots of East German Berlin Wall maintenance workers and guards who lost their jobs after the wall came down.
Personally, I remember suffering under Carter, but I recall prospering under Reagan.
Big League, I think Malveaux was referring to herself.
Submitted by UpNorth on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:08am.
She suffered because she was and is so totally invested in the liberal mantra that everyone suffers during a Republican presidency, and everyone profits during a Dem presidency. I know, the disconnect from reality is stunning. But, it is what it is.
I remember suffering under Carter, also. I remember being told that I could only buy gas, if there was any, on odd numbered days, because my license plate ended with an odd number. I remember hours-long lines at service stations. I remember Ted Koppel beginning his nightly telethon with "America Held Hostage, Day 327". I remember being told to turn down the thermostat as that was the patriotic thing to do. And, last, but certainly not least, I remember the Mullahs in Tehran showing the burned remains of American servicemen on their television, after the debacle of trying to rescue our hostages, after Carter had down-sized the military and cut funds for training and upgrades. Gee, that last sounds familiar, in a sick way.
Switching plates
Submitted by Model850 on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 4:49pm.
I remember being told that I could only buy gas, if there was any, on odd numbered days, because my license plate ended with an odd number.
Did you ever switch license plates with a friend or family member so you could buy gas even though it wasn't "your" day?
I did. Ahhh, good times.....
Yeah, I did.
Submitted by UpNorth on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 5:14pm.
I had a neighbor who, as it worked out, needed gas on my day, and I usually would fill up whenever the stations had gas, so, I'd switch with him whenever we needed gas.
I also remember people pushing their cars up to the pumps, because they'd run out of gas, waiting for a few hours for gas. I never got that low, but many did.
Got it ass backwards.
Submitted by The Vet on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:12am.
Costello: Reagan dealt with the economic woes of his time in a way Republicans are not willing to do now. Mr. Reagan raised taxes.
Wrong. President Reagan dealt with the economic woes by LOWERING taxes. Not raising them.
President Reagan raised taxes later to deal with a growing deficit problem with the government NOT due to economic woes.
Two overly catty high school girls that couldn't get prom dates.
Submitted by drsamherman on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:06am.
That is exactly how I would describe their character and substance of their conversation.
Speaking of Reagan Era history.
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:45pm.
The Reagan Era gave us such lexicons as the rise of the Yuppies, those newly graduated, extremely successful college kids who were "young urban professionals" or "young upwardly mobile" and were so plentiful in numbers that we actually created a brand new term just for them! Just how was that possible if "a lot of" people were "suffering" due to "Reaganomics?"
Let's compare the the two eras, shall we? Especially the comparisons of the expectations of the college kids during the Reagan Era and the college kids of the Obama Era. Then, during the Reagan era , the newly graduated college kids all expected to become rich and successful, which most of them did. Today, during the Obama era, they all expect to become vagrants, unemployed and drowning in debt, which most of them are. So, you tell me, liberals, which President had or has the better economic policies, Reagan or Obama?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
⇒ The days of Studio 54
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:55pm.
How can Liberals possibly forget the days when a homosexual man (Michael Jackson) could walk into a Cocaine Den (Studio 54) with a 10-yr. old child of affluence (Anderson Cooper) without an eyebrow raised?
Savor the irony
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:34pm.
Do you know what the most ironic part of all this is? It's the irony of who the college kids today all blame as the instrument of economic destruction. Who's responsible for destroying our economy, you may ask today's college kids? That's easy: it's the fault of all those college kids of yesterday, the ones who became the bankers, the stockbrokers, the CEO's, the business owners, the people who, supposedly, are all money grubbing, racists, capitalist pigs who are working in unison to destroy America and it's economy. The colleges kids are blaming their fellow college graduates, the people who graduated the very same colleges they are now attending! How's that for irony?
And to pile irony on top of irony, the college kids of today, after identifying the cause of our economic implosion, the college kids of yesterday, claim that the solution to the destructive effects of the previous college graduates is to, yes, you've got it, have the government make it easier for more kids to get into college!
And, to make it even more ironic, the college educated democrats, along with the college educated "journalists, " both of whom cite all those college educated "experts," all blame the same people as the current college kids: their fellow college graduates. And, just like the current crop of college attendees, they, too, think that the solution is to produce even more college educated people, college educated people who's college educated children will, no doubt, blame for the economic woes of tomorrow, thus completing the Great Cycle of Irony!
I wonder if ANY of them even recognize the irony of all of this? Honestly, I don't think any of those college educated people are smart enough to even notice. Perhaps they should all go back to college?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
⇒ The vicious spiral
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:36pm.
I'm sure that course in Occupy, taught by prestigious (and dare I say mildly expensive) Columbia University, will open doors wherever the graduate goes.
Yes, that's my butt-smear on the driver's side of your Lexus, Mr. Dithers. Can I have a raise?
It's an old sprial
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:50pm.
It's an old spiral, one that I first noticed in the late 60's when we had all those college kids blaming all the woes of the world on the people who previous graduated from the very same colleges they, the "enlightened ones, were currently attending. They were protesting "The Man," while attending college learning how to become "The Man!" I was just a little kid, still attending grade school, but I could see the blatant irony in that. Why was it that they, the ones who had the benefit of a "higher education" failed to see it at all, just like they continue to do today?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
⇒ Yuppies ruled
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:55pm.
They gathered at lunch to listen to Rush Limbaugh and went back afterwards ready to continue the use of their MBA degrees.
Here's the way I look at it:
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:02pm.
College philosophy today can be summed up thusly:
Students, what is the cause of the various problems we face today?
We are!
So, Students, what is the solution to those problems?
Make more of us!
Congratulations, Students, you've all earned a Masters Degree in Political Science, Economics, and the Liberal Arts! You are all well on your way to become the Leaders of Tomorrow!
This is what is known as "higher education!" And people still wonder why I dropped out of High School?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
⇒ Well, of course, Cobra
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:02pm.
I've never even heard of a conservative arts degree.