Letters to the Editor: Was Reagan’s presidency a disaster for the poor or a time of prosperity?

To the editor: Joel Edward Goza presents an excellent comparison and history of the Reagan Revolution policies and Project 2025, and the role of the Heritage Foundation in both.

Left out, however, is the detail that the health insurance safety net of Medicaid for lower-income Americans was slashed by President Ronald Reagan and made inaccessible to all but the most destitute Americans for decades.

Not until 30 years later did Obamacare reinstate that resource for residents of the states that chose to care about their peoples’ health. Shamefully, 10 states still refuse to care about the health of their low-income residents.

I know this fact because Medicaid paid for my life-saving cancer surgery in 1980 when I was a low-income student. Two years later, I wouldn’t have been eligible for assistance, as Reagan had cut the program.

Sally Richman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Goza calls Reagan an “engineer of catastrophe.” Are you kidding me? It’s hard to believe you would print such an article.

I lived in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and Reagan’s presidency, especially his second term, was a time when the area was booming. In the late 1980s, L.A. County was the country’s largest manufacturing center.

Publishing op-ed articles like this is abdicating your journalistic integrity.

Chris Richgels, Scottsdale, Ariz.

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To the editor: The article was not complete. The author forgot to include the fact that U.S. gross national product went up by nearly 500% from 1989 to 2024. That number is readily confirmable.

Also, who wants to go back to the good old days before Reagan’s presidency when the government could take 70% of the income you made in the highest tax bracket?

Jerre Reimers, Simi Valley