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From: mjk@ttrdc.UUCP (Mike Kelly)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Social Programs Cause the Deficit
Message-ID: <121@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Apr-85 18:45:47 EST
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Posted: Wed Apr 10 18:45:47 1985
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When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, the Federal deficit totalled
approximately $70 billion.  Today, it is about $200 billion.  In the
past five years, *real* spending on social programs as a group has 
remained frozen or declined.  Real defense spending has gone up
approximately 30%.   It was approximately $170 billion during the last
year of the Carter presidency; this year it will be approximately $314
billion.

It doesn't take a f**king genius to see what has caused the bulk of
the deficit problem.

If you're against social programs on principle, fine.  I'd suggest to
you that most people in this country have benefited from them.   If you
doubt that, ask yourself what kind of shape your older relatives would
be in without social security; what kind of education you would have had
without federal aid to primary and secondary schools, as well as the
federal loan, grant and work-study programs for colleges; what your health
would be like without federal support for disease research and universal
vaccination.  For some reason, people think social programs are what
the government gives *someone else*; what you get are *rights*.

Mike Kelly