Jackson Asks Reagan to Restore Budget Cuts, Pressure S. Africa
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Jesse Jackson said he appealed to President Reagan on Wednesday to restore $5 billion in education budget cuts and to increase pressure on South Africa.
Jackson, along with Washington Mayor Marion Barry and black educator Samuel Myers, met with Reagan to present a black agenda, which the 1984 Democratic presidential contender said had been ignored in the President’s first six years.
Jackson said the $5-billion cut in education spending Reagan proposed for fiscal 1988 would have “a devastating impact on many children from working-class families†and would “close the doors of educational opportunity†by switching from federal grants to loans for higher education.
As a result, he said, there could be more joblessness, more people on welfare and more crime.
Seek to Free Mandela
In addition to expressing blacks’ domestic concerns, Jackson said he and Barry asked Reagan to step up pressure on South Africa to free the jailed Nelson Mandela and to help build a transportation network so products from the front-line states do not have to go through South Africa to be exported.
He also said he appealed to Reagan to “hear some alternatives in Central America†to fighting between the Marxist-led Sandinista regime of Nicaragua and the contras .
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