I try to hold my fire. But there are bitter memories about the embrace of the bailout and sanctioning of illegal immigration that embitters.
The bailout was a mistake, I agree. However, he never "sanctioned" illegal immigration. He supported a version of a measure that had already been kicking around Congress in the late 1990's.
I really wish people on the Right would be honest about this issue. The person who opened the floodgates to illegal immigration was President Ronald Reagan when he both supported and signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Not only did that terrible piece of legislation lead the way toward the massive illegal immigration of the 1990's and 2000's, but it began the downward pressure on American wages and employment that is still impacting our standard of living today. It began the trend toward companies obtaining both white and blue collar labor through subcontractors and temporary agencies, otherwise known as outsourcing. The passage of NAFTA a few years later under Bill Clinton opened the floodgates to jobs being outsourced overseas. (Ross Perot was completely right about NAFTA. Too bad he was such a nutcase.)
President Reagan was a great man, who is still beloved by millions of Americans. I love him and cried buckets full of tears when he died. But he was a human being subject to the same human failings as the rest of us. He made mistakes. The two biggest, with the longest and most damaginig impact, were supporting and signing IRACA/86 and turning tail after the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon. President George W. Bush is the man who, along with the rest of us, got stuck paying the bills for those two mistakes.