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Linda Taylor, welfare queen: Ronald Reagan made her a notorious American villain. Linda Taylor?s other sins were far worse.
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. When he ran for president in 1976, many of Reagans anecdotes converged on a single point: The welfare state is broken, and Im the man to fix it. On the trail, the Republican candidate told a tale about a fancy public housing complex with a gym and a swimming pool. There was also someone in California, hed explain incredulously, who supported herself with food stamps while learning the art of witchcraft. And in stump speech after stump speech, Reagan regaled his supporters with the story of an Illinois woman whose feats of deception were too amazing to be believed.
In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record, the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year. As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.
Four decades later, Reagans soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term welfare queen, and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times Paul Krugman wrote that the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. MSNBCs Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkeya coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.
Though Reagan was known to stretch the truth, he did not invent that woman in Chicago. Her name was Linda Taylor, and it was the Chicago Tribune, not the GOP politician, who dubbed her the welfare queen. It was the Tribune, too, that lavished attention on Taylors jewelry, furs, and Cadillacall of which were real.
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In late September 1974, seven weeks after Sherwin met Taylor for the second time, the detectives findings made the Chicago Tribune. Linda Taylor received Illinois welfare checks and food stamps, even tho[ugh] she was driving three 1974 autosa Cadillac, a Lincoln, and a Chevrolet station wagonclaimed to own four South Side buildings, and was about to leave for a vacation in Hawaii, wrote Pulitzer Prize winner George Bliss. The story detailed a 14-page report that Sherwin had put together illuminating a lifestyle of false identities that seemed calculated to confuse our computerized, credit-oriented society. There was evidence that the 47-year-old Taylor had used three Social Security cards, 27 names, 31 addresses, and 25 phone numbers to fuel her mischief, not to mention 30 different wigs.
As the Tribune and other outlets stayed on the story, those figures continued to rise. Reporters noted that Linda Taylor had used as many as 80 names, and that shed received at least $150,000in illicit welfare cash, the numbers that Ronald Reagan would cite on the campaign trail in 1976. (Though she used dozens of different identities, Ive chosen to call her Linda Taylor in this story, as its how the public came to know her at the height of her infamy.) Taylor also gained a reputation as a master of disguise. "She is black, but is able to pass herself off as Spanish, Filipino, white, and black," the executive director of Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid told the Associated Press in November 1974. "And it appears she can be any age she wishes, from the early 20s to the early 50s.
For years I've been hearing the Left caterwaul that Reagan lied about the "Welfare Queen".
Turns out he didn't lie.... At least not the way that the Liberals meant he did. It seems that he minimized the crimes.
Linda Taylor, welfare queen: Ronald Reagan made her a notorious American villain. Linda Taylor?s other sins were far worse.
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. When he ran for president in 1976, many of Reagans anecdotes converged on a single point: The welfare state is broken, and Im the man to fix it. On the trail, the Republican candidate told a tale about a fancy public housing complex with a gym and a swimming pool. There was also someone in California, hed explain incredulously, who supported herself with food stamps while learning the art of witchcraft. And in stump speech after stump speech, Reagan regaled his supporters with the story of an Illinois woman whose feats of deception were too amazing to be believed.
In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record, the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year. As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.
Four decades later, Reagans soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term welfare queen, and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times Paul Krugman wrote that the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. MSNBCs Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkeya coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.
Though Reagan was known to stretch the truth, he did not invent that woman in Chicago. Her name was Linda Taylor, and it was the Chicago Tribune, not the GOP politician, who dubbed her the welfare queen. It was the Tribune, too, that lavished attention on Taylors jewelry, furs, and Cadillacall of which were real.
:::::::::::::::::::
In late September 1974, seven weeks after Sherwin met Taylor for the second time, the detectives findings made the Chicago Tribune. Linda Taylor received Illinois welfare checks and food stamps, even tho[ugh] she was driving three 1974 autosa Cadillac, a Lincoln, and a Chevrolet station wagonclaimed to own four South Side buildings, and was about to leave for a vacation in Hawaii, wrote Pulitzer Prize winner George Bliss. The story detailed a 14-page report that Sherwin had put together illuminating a lifestyle of false identities that seemed calculated to confuse our computerized, credit-oriented society. There was evidence that the 47-year-old Taylor had used three Social Security cards, 27 names, 31 addresses, and 25 phone numbers to fuel her mischief, not to mention 30 different wigs.
As the Tribune and other outlets stayed on the story, those figures continued to rise. Reporters noted that Linda Taylor had used as many as 80 names, and that shed received at least $150,000in illicit welfare cash, the numbers that Ronald Reagan would cite on the campaign trail in 1976. (Though she used dozens of different identities, Ive chosen to call her Linda Taylor in this story, as its how the public came to know her at the height of her infamy.) Taylor also gained a reputation as a master of disguise. "She is black, but is able to pass herself off as Spanish, Filipino, white, and black," the executive director of Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid told the Associated Press in November 1974. "And it appears she can be any age she wishes, from the early 20s to the early 50s.
For years I've been hearing the Left caterwaul that Reagan lied about the "Welfare Queen".
Turns out he didn't lie.... At least not the way that the Liberals meant he did. It seems that he minimized the crimes.
Linda Taylor, welfare queen: Ronald Reagan made her a notorious American villain. Linda Taylor?s other sins were far worse.
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. When he ran for president in 1976, many of Reagans anecdotes converged on a single point: The welfare state is broken, and Im the man to fix it. On the trail, the Republican candidate told a tale about a fancy public housing complex with a gym and a swimming pool. There was also someone in California, hed explain incredulously, who supported herself with food stamps while learning the art of witchcraft. And in stump speech after stump speech, Reagan regaled his supporters with the story of an Illinois woman whose feats of deception were too amazing to be believed.
In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record, the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year. As soon as he quoted that dollar amount, the crowd gasped.
Four decades later, Reagans soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term welfare queen, and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times Paul Krugman wrote that the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. MSNBCs Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkeya coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.
Though Reagan was known to stretch the truth, he did not invent that woman in Chicago. Her name was Linda Taylor, and it was the Chicago Tribune, not the GOP politician, who dubbed her the welfare queen. It was the Tribune, too, that lavished attention on Taylors jewelry, furs, and Cadillacall of which were real.
:::::::::::::::::::
In late September 1974, seven weeks after Sherwin met Taylor for the second time, the detectives findings made the Chicago Tribune. Linda Taylor received Illinois welfare checks and food stamps, even tho[ugh] she was driving three 1974 autosa Cadillac, a Lincoln, and a Chevrolet station wagonclaimed to own four South Side buildings, and was about to leave for a vacation in Hawaii, wrote Pulitzer Prize winner George Bliss. The story detailed a 14-page report that Sherwin had put together illuminating a lifestyle of false identities that seemed calculated to confuse our computerized, credit-oriented society. There was evidence that the 47-year-old Taylor had used three Social Security cards, 27 names, 31 addresses, and 25 phone numbers to fuel her mischief, not to mention 30 different wigs.
As the Tribune and other outlets stayed on the story, those figures continued to rise. Reporters noted that Linda Taylor had used as many as 80 names, and that shed received at least $150,000in illicit welfare cash, the numbers that Ronald Reagan would cite on the campaign trail in 1976. (Though she used dozens of different identities, Ive chosen to call her Linda Taylor in this story, as its how the public came to know her at the height of her infamy.) Taylor also gained a reputation as a master of disguise. "She is black, but is able to pass herself off as Spanish, Filipino, white, and black," the executive director of Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid told the Associated Press in November 1974. "And it appears she can be any age she wishes, from the early 20s to the early 50s.
AND GUESS what Reagan did that is JUST AS BAD as the liberals/democrats/progressives do???
HE took an Isolated, exceptional, NOT the rule anecdotal situation and made it sound like EVERY WELFARE case is like it!
He was wrong to do that just as these idiots who want more gun laws all because 8 people a year are killed in multiple massacres since 1980s!
ANECDOTAL stories make good press BUT are NOT THE RULE!
Reagan using this story as a RULE is what has got us in to this really bad mess that everytime we have ONE person who couldn't get insurance cause
they smoked... TEAR DOWN ALL our insurance programs! That's what has happened!
WE hear all these sob stories...ALL ANECDOTAL! ALL EXCEPTIONS not the RULE!
If we totally operated our society on protecting EVERY SINGLE person from womb to tomb.. NO MORE ADVANCEMENTS!!!
Our civilization is doomed by idiots that make the EXCEPTION the RULE!
Take some time folks... watch your local media... see how if it bleeds it leads.. WE legislate for the exception AND NOT the rule!
For years I've been hearing the Left caterwaul that Reagan lied about the "Welfare Queen".
Turns out he didn't lie.... At least not the way that the Liberals meant he did. It seems that he minimized the crimes.
AND GUESS what Reagan did that is JUST AS BAD as the liberals/democrats/progressives do???
HE took an Isolated, exceptional, NOT the rule anecdotal situation and made it sound like EVERY WELFARE case is like it!
He was wrong to do that just as these idiots who want more gun laws all because 8 people a year are killed in multiple massacres since 1980s!
ANECDOTAL stories make good press BUT are NOT THE RULE!
Reagan using this story as a RULE is what has got us in to this really bad mess that everytime we have ONE person who couldn't get insurance cause
they smoked... TEAR DOWN ALL our insurance programs! That's what has happened!
WE hear all these sob stories...ALL ANECDOTAL! ALL EXCEPTIONS not the RULE!
If we totally operated our society on protecting EVERY SINGLE person from womb to tomb.. NO MORE ADVANCEMENTS!!!
Our civilization is doomed by idiots that make the EXCEPTION the RULE!
Take some time folks... watch your local media... see how if it bleeds it leads.. WE legislate for the exception AND NOT the rule!
The difference is welfare isn't a Constitutional right, its a privilege paid for by taxpayers, and angry taxpayers have the right to take that away.
But apparently you're to stupid to know the difference.
The problem was Taylor was a kidnapper, a murderer and a grifter, and the thing you conservatards want to concentrate on was "She cheated the welfare system".
Come to think of it, so did Conservative Hero, David Koresh.
The problem was Taylor was a kidnapper, a murderer and a grifter, and the thing you conservatards want to concentrate on was "She cheated the welfare system".
Come to think of it, so did Conservative Hero, David Koresh.
WTF? David Koresh is a Conservative Hero? The pedophile who killed a bunch of people? Joey where do you get this stuff from?
She was a hardened criminal.
That her real crimes were ignored to make the narrative of a welfare queen seem real is obvious.
A program started by Carter. After the invasion of Afghanistan, Zbigniew Brezhinsky, Carter NSA, famously Said, now we will give them their own Vietnam." Regardless, it is a hackneyed mantra since these groups included those who joined the US in overthrowing the Taliban and included neither the Taliban nor Al Queda.Reagan and the CIA were arming and funding terrorist groups in Afghanistan to be proxy soldiers against the Soviets.
