I think this is where your memory skews.

By the standards of the time, that is true.

But today? Reagan supported AMNESTY. He supported a tax reform bill that RAISED some taxes. EITC??? That's a means-tested welfare program to try to lift working poor above the poverty line.

I grew up a liberal. I still am, but I'll be honest, my idealism is tested by our tax rate and fiscal ignorance. If you have no kids or mortgage, live in California and make over 100k -- in other words if you're like most software engineers in bay area startups -- you pay an obscene tax rate. And I'd even be OK with that if Sacramento and D.C. were good stewards of our tax dollars. But, of course, they're not.

Still, I have no choice but vote Democratic. I could vote 3rd party and waste my vote. But today's breed of hyper-partisan, non-fact-base Republicans just are not a serious alternative.