Reagan was no failure

What an uncomfortable week it must have been for the editorial staff at the Bangor Daily News to hear the stirring tribute Americans paid to the most loved and respected president of our times. The June 7 and 11 editorials bring into question your qualifications to editorialize for an objective newspaper.

You seem to harp more on what you consider President Reagan’s failures than his accomplishments. This is tantamount to saying Franklin D. Roosevelt was a failure because he perpetrated one of the worst human rights violations in history when he impounded many Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

FDR also tripled the national debt and most of the prominent “New Dealers” admit the New Deal was a failure and that it took a war to get us out of the Great Depression. I cannot say how much of Reagan’s deficits were due to the tax cuts or the defense spending that concluded the Cold War. However, that spent on defense was a cheap and bloodless way to conclude the Cold War, and the cuts ushered in the longest period of economic prosperity up to that time.

You decry that Reagan didn’t do enough for the bottom segment of society. Having been a part of that society in his early years, perhaps he thought it best to set an example that would lead people to rise to their best. When Reagan proposed that those on the dole should show some reciprocity, you and your ilk screamed, but there was not even a murmur from your camp when President Bill Clinton introduced Workfare.

How you must pine for the sleaze of the Clinton years.

Douglas V. Hundley

Perry