Civil Rights & Domestic Affairs 🗝️ Q&A 25th Press Conference (Excerpt) Ronald Reagan 1984 * PITD

Civil Rights & Domestic Affairs 🗝️ Q&A 25th Press Conference (Excerpt) #RonaldReagan 1984 * #PITD
June 14, 1984
Q. There's a measure before the Congress to change the Federal #CivilRightsLaw to specifically prohibit job discrimination against homosexuals. Is that something that you would favor?

The President. Well, I just have to say I am opposed to discrimination, period. Now -- --

Q. Well, would you support the measure, Mr. President?

The President. What?

Q. Will you support that measure, putting it into -- --

The President. I want to see -- I want to see what else they have there.
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Q. I want to follow on that. The leadership conference, which met this past week, said that you are the greatest opponent to civil rights, as a President, in the last two decades. And they gave -- very specific showing -- that your policies are attempting to reverse the civil rights gains. And now these grassroots people believe that you have been blaming the leaders, and Brad Reynolds has been blaming the media. But aren't you underestimating the intelligence of the grassroots people if you think that they don't know what they're suffering from? And this is going to be -- isn't this going to really cause a division in this country rather than a unified country unless you can convince these people, who are the victims of these policies? If you can't convince them that their conditions are better, then you're working toward a disunified country, aren't you?

The President. Well, I think the reduction in inflation certainly has got to help people. I'm sure you're talking about people at the lower end of the earning scale.

Our tax policies have been more beneficial to them than to anyone else. This idea that we hear on Capitol Hill all the time that our tax programs benefited the rich -- the figures belie that. The people in the upper-income brackets are paying a greater percentage of the overall income tax than they were paying before our tax program went into effect. The people at the bottom of the scale are paying less, a lower percentage.

But now the other point, the inference that programs of a #welfare nature -- #SocialPrograms and benefits have been reduced to the place that people dependent on them are now suffering -- that is not true. We are helping more people and paying more money than ever in the history of this country in all of those social programs. The Government is providing 95 million meals a day. I could go on with the others.

Some of the things that have led perhaps to confusion -- is taking something like the educational programs. We found out that people were eligible when we came here for #CollegeGrants and loans for their children, and their income level was too high for this to be warranted. So, yes, we changed the income level, but this allowed us to increase further down to the people with real need and do more for them.

For example, we probably eliminated 850,000 people from food stamps. But we increased the number of people who were getting food stamps, because we transferred this from people who were at a higher level. Our level now of income for most of these programs, if not all, is 130 percent of the poverty level. If you're below that, you're eligible. And most families would find themselves eligible for three or four of the programs at the same time. And it is a falsehood that is being purveyed to people that their problems, whether through unemployment or whatever -- look at what we've done by the increase in unemployment. And, granted, that blacks in this country had a higher rate of unemployment than whites at the time of the recession; their rate of recovery is faster than the rate of recovery for whites.
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Full Transcript:
https://[a]www.reaganlibrary.gov%2Farchives%2Fspeech%2Fpresidents-news-conference-36[/a]
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