Voting With Feet, Reaganomically

RONALD REAGAN, not known for his compassion after he abandoned the New Deal Democratic party, encouraged people to "vote with your feet", by which he meant: if you can't find work in your hometown, move. If the free market injects life into your local economy, fine, if not, the free market has spoken. Vote with your feet. True compassion. For this attitude, which included a generous offer to permit some wealth to trickle down like descending bread crumbs from the extremely wealthy to the extremely poor, a multi billion dollar aircraft carrier was named the "USS Ronald Reagan". A big ship named for a big money man. Big dollars for big power. Now that Puerto Rico needs help in large amounts,, and has for a while, even long before the hurricane, one might imagine the Ronald Reagan ship of state, fully loaded with bottled water, Meals Ready To Eat, blankets, medicine, and helicopters taking a brief hiatus from duty off the coast of North Korea, or Iraq, or Iran, or Venezuela, or wherever, and cruising into the Caribbean voting with its nuclear power, to help the poor. Might. Imagine. No, Gipper, the three point four people of Puerto Rico cannot vote with their feet without getting them, and everything else, quite wet. Since the Republicans haven't tried to repeal Obamacare again today, yet, although its still early, they need something to do to keep them off the streets, out of trouble. To kill time, they might turn to the next item on their you're on your own agenda: reducing taxes on the very wealthy, what they tongue in cheek smirkily smugly call "tax reform". In bygone days, when America was more civilized, the middle class was visible, and prevalent. The wealthy, who back in the day were far less numerous than now, used to show their love of country by actually contributing to it. Then came Reagan, voting with his feet, moving to Washington, and dispensing bread crumbs unto the unwashed masses. the crumbs are still descending. we still stand below, mouths agape, powerless, waiting. The good news is that the good ship Reagan has been sighted "off the coast" of Venezuela, fighting socialism, or at least threatening it. Regrettably, socialism isn't Venezuela's problem. Venezuela's problem is a far too great dependence on the oil exports, and falling oil prices. The Venezuelans can't vote with their feet either. Ronald Reagan has them hemmed in, and has for a very long time.