As far as Reagan’s “ketchup as a vegetable,” much of it had to do with budgets for school lunches and what school children will and will not eat. Kids typically will not eat vegetables unless someone is hanging over them, so millions of pounds of peas, succotash, beets, spinach, etc. were being dumped into the garbage across the country. The kids, for the most part, were NOT eating the vegetables served, and as I remember, Reagan joked about the ketchup because kids will eat ketchup. I admit, he should not have said that ketchup is a vegetable, because despite the vitamins and antioxidants in tomatoes, no one can eat enough ketchup in one sitting to equal one full vegetable serving. I believe relish was also considered for a bit to be treated as a vegetable. The media went wild and attacked him. Not his most shining moment, but as you left out, that policy was abandoned.

And concerning his Sec. of the Interior’s horrible remark, I don’t see you condemning Pres. Obama because of his Czar of Green Jobs (now gone) Van Jones saying that all Republicans are a**holes, Democrat senators saying that conservatives are “terrorists” and “brownshirts,” Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying that dissension is un-American and those who don’t support Obama’s policies are as bad as Nazis or racists. No outcry for what’s happening now, Rebecca, just a few things from several decades ago? Reagan never called Americans names like is happening every week now, he just spoke out against socialism and for free market principles. While Obama has not called anyone these names, he also has not stepped forward and condemned those Democrats who are doing the maligning. NOT ONCE.

What part of breaking up unions are you talking about? I don’t remember unions ever going away. In fact, they are much more insidious today than I can recall from back then. And as far as unions go, while in the early days they had good intentions to help oppressed workers, they drive the price of goods and services way up. Much of the union dues go to line union heads’ pockets.

I’m not sure what your point about Ronald Reagan is. He was a remarkable man and an excellent president, although not perfect. He made some mistakes, being human, but ultimately, was responsible for the creation of millions of private sector jobs in America, undoing the economic nightmare brought on by socialist Jimmy Carter and bringing our country back to prosperity, made this world a safer place from Communism, and was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin Wall.

Reagan’s words against government-run health care are still true today. This administration couldn’t even get Cash for Clunkers done right. I don’t want the clowns in Washington being in charge of my health care. And I don’t want them dismantling our health care insurance system. It is one of the best in the world, although it needs improvement. So, let’s have the government fix the deficit Medicare/Medicaid runs, fix the horrible conditions of government-run health care on Indian reservations, do something about tort reform BEFORE they destroy our health care system. Surveys show that 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care. I know I am. But I’ll be damned if my family gets fined $1,500 if I choose to not have health care. And I do not want to pay for the health care of illegal aliens.

Pension plans are a perk with large companies. However, with the ever-increasing taxes the government has levied against businesses, with more to come, cuts must be made. Sadly, when push comes to shove, benefits and perks to employees tend to be the first to be slashed. Small businesses have a hard enough time producing a profit, so expecting them to also provide pensions to retirees for 20 or 30 years is unreasonable.

By “brown shirts,” are you referring to the union thugs who beat up and put into the hospital the black conservative in St. Louis? Or the hired Hispanics who were waving signs in favor of ObamaCare, chanting, but when asked what they were protesting, were unable to say what was on their signs, because they could not speak English? They are “mobs for hire.” Until then, the protests were reasonably contained. Now, with Sibelius bringing in “brothers and sisters,” the violence is starting.

If the government did not tax us already on health care for the elderly, and if people could use all the money they’ve paid into the system to pay, instead, for their own health care, we would not be in this mess. Free markets are skewed when the government tries to manipulate them. It failed with housing, it failed with bailouts. It will fail with health care.

Read the bill. There are many cutbacks on what senior citizens will get, since their “usefulness” as productive tax payers has decreased. You think the system is bad now? I agree… it has many problems. But this new plan is worse. I’ve written about it many times on this blog. Seniors will be denied treatments that they currently can get because socialized health care is a sham. However, illegal aliens will be covered. Anyone who has read the bill will realize how terrible it is.

Quite poor, but still probably better than you might think, given the government of the first is pretty close to a dictatorship and the government of the second is caught in a possibly hopeless war against powerful drug cartels.

How is it doing in, say, Japan? Or South Korea? Or European countries other than the UK? I assume it’s just as bad in all of those as the examples you cited.