Reagan at 100
The Legacy of Reagan at 100
Feb. 6 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the U.S. Revered by many during his presidency, he retains a loyal following today. For them, Reagan’s word is gospel, his acts were ingenious. For instance, for 2 1/2 decades, Republicans argued that Reagan proved debt doesn’t matter.
Reagan was the savior to his devout followers. They advocated revoking the 22nd Amendment limiting presidential terms so he could be president for life. They wanted to carve his countenance on Mt. Rushmore alongside four of the most popular presidents. They praised his resolve. He made a decision and went ahead with it as opposed to Bill Clinton who held his finger up to the wind to see which way it was blowing to determine his course of action. They ignored the fact that leading in the direction the people desire is democracy. Going wherever the leader decides to go is dictatorship.
Reagan brought the U.S. out of strangling inflation, cut taxes and stimulated business to a renewed prosperity, his devotees claimed. He brought down the Berlin Wall merely by standing beside it and commanding it to go away just as Moses told the Red Sea to part so Jews could escape from Egypt. That act was followed by bringing down the Soviet Union itself with an expensive, budget busting arms race. Those accomplishments would destroy the cause of wars and generate a peace dividend, Reagan promised.
On Feb. 6, Reagan admirers across the U.S. gathered to celebrate the accomplishments and legacy of their hero and pray that the U.S. would produce another presidential candidate just like him.
Looking back over a generation later, what was the Reagan record? How did his actions affect future generations? Thanks mostly to Reagan the nation now has a $14 trillion debt. When Reagan took office, the national debt was less than $1 trillion, an amount candidate Reagan said was appalling and president Reagan would resolve immediately. President Reagan never balanced any of his eight budgets and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion.
Reagan reinstated the trickle-down, supply-side economics policies that were so disastrous in the 1920s and ‘30s. He added Milton Friedman’s neoliberal monetarist theories and changed the economic emphasis from manufacturing to service jobs. He repeatedly called for Congress to get the government off the backs of businesses and free corporations to do what they do best, grow and expand the economy. The fuel for predicted economic prosperity would be tax cuts and a smaller, less intrusive government.
Reagan’s admirers claim that is exactly what happened. However, according to many experts, reality is quite different. One of the best critics of Reagan is Kevin Philips. Philips is a Republican who served in the Nixon Administration as a statistician and strategist. He set out to defend Reagan from his critics, but after crunching the numbers, a different picture emerged. In his book, The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), Philips revealed some alarming statistics. When Reagan took office, the U.S. was the world’s largest creditor nation. When he left office, the U.S. was the world’s greatest debtor nation importing billions more each year than it exported. Wages stagnated as Reagan waged war on the unions. Mothers were forced to abandon their children and enter the workforce because a father no longer earned enough to provide for a family by himself. Non-union service jobs had replaced well-paying manufacturing jobs leaving families clamoring to earn enough to survive.
As in the 1920s, supply-side economics failed to trickle down, log-jamming the wealth at the top and starving the demand-side of the economy. Deregulated, unaccountable businesses proved that what they do best is plunder the economy. In 1987, the stock market took a record dive. Deregulated Savings and Loans went into receivership by the dozens and had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Dot-Com information technology businesses collapsed because of corrupt, unmonitored business practices. Then several of the big accounting firms folded as unregulated businesses resembled casinos more than responsible enterprises serving as stewards of a nation’s economy.
Reagan cut taxes for prosperous citizens, but raised them on lower income working people. For instance, he raised Social Security contributions over 50% and used that surplus to disguise the drain on the Treasury from tax cuts for the wealthy.
The Savings and Loan collapses and other business failures were the first tremors of a pending economic earthquake. The earthquake was postponed recklessly and irresponsibly by borrowing massive amounts of money from future generations.
By the time George W. Bush left office in 2009, the national debt was $12 trillion, and interest on the Reagan-Bush debt became the third biggest expense in the Federal budget. Since 1981, Reagan presided over five record deficits; G. H. W. Bush, two; George W. Bush, four. Bill Clinton had zero record deficits in eight years. Every Republican budget since 1981 was a deficit. Fifty five percent were record deficits.
In foreign policy, Reagan also had a dismal record. He helped fund and train a contingent of about 3,000 Arabs who went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight with their Muslim brothers against Soviet invaders. Those Arabs were led by Osama bin Laden. When the U.S. established military bases in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War, bin Laden saw the act as aggression similar to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He issued several warnings for the U.S. to withdraw, which were ignored by two presidents. Bin Laden then turned to force, bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa, the Navy ship USS Cole and finally, the World Trade Center.
Reagan was obsessed with the Central American nation of Nicaragua which had the audacity to electharoldtagg@comcast.net Communists to lead it. He was determined to evict Communism from the American continents and used every means available to reach his objective. He funded “Contras” to overthrow the government. He mined Nicaragua’s harbors which got the U.S. convicted by the World Court for terrorist activities. When Congress finally cut off funding for the hostilities, Reagan turned to drug-running and arms deals with Iran, a nation on the State Department’s terrorist list, to get the funding. These acts of subversion, treason, money laundering and drug running became know as the Iran-Contra scandal.
The book Conservatives without Conscience (2006), authored by Nixon White House attorney John Dean in collaboration with Barry Goldwater, compiled several studies done after World War II by social psychologists. The madness of the war indicated existing theories of human behavior and psychology were inadequate. One conclusion was that 25% of conservatives would never comprehend the destructive, illegal and atrocious behavior of their idols and heroes no matter what evidence was uncovered. Reagan will have devoted followers for at least two more generations.
Feb. 6 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the U.S. Revered by many during his presidency, he retains a loyal following today. For them, Reagan’s word is gospel, his acts were ingenious. For instance, for 2 1/2 decades, Republicans argued that Reagan proved debt doesn’t matter.
Reagan was the savior to his devout followers. They advocated revoking the 22nd Amendment limiting presidential terms so he could be president for life. They wanted to carve his countenance on Mt. Rushmore alongside four of the most popular presidents. They praised his resolve. He made a decision and went ahead with it as opposed to Bill Clinton who held his finger up to the wind to see which way it was blowing to determine his course of action. They ignored the fact that leading in the direction the people desire is democracy. Going wherever the leader decides to go is dictatorship.
Reagan brought the U.S. out of strangling inflation, cut taxes and stimulated business to a renewed prosperity, his devotees claimed. He brought down the Berlin Wall merely by standing beside it and commanding it to go away just as Moses told the Red Sea to part so Jews could escape from Egypt. That act was followed by bringing down the Soviet Union itself with an expensive, budget busting arms race. Those accomplishments would destroy the cause of wars and generate a peace dividend, Reagan promised.
On Feb. 6, Reagan admirers across the U.S. gathered to celebrate the accomplishments and legacy of their hero and pray that the U.S. would produce another presidential candidate just like him.
Looking back over a generation later, what was the Reagan record? How did his actions affect future generations? Thanks mostly to Reagan the nation now has a $14 trillion debt. When Reagan took office, the national debt was less than $1 trillion, an amount candidate Reagan said was appalling and president Reagan would resolve immediately. President Reagan never balanced any of his eight budgets and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion.
Reagan reinstated the trickle-down, supply-side economics policies that were so disastrous in the 1920s and ‘30s. He added Milton Friedman’s neoliberal monetarist theories and changed the economic emphasis from manufacturing to service jobs. He repeatedly called for Congress to get the government off the backs of businesses and free corporations to do what they do best, grow and expand the economy. The fuel for predicted economic prosperity would be tax cuts and a smaller, less intrusive government.
Reagan’s admirers claim that is exactly what happened. However, according to many experts, reality is quite different. One of the best critics of Reagan is Kevin Philips. Philips is a Republican who served in the Nixon Administration as a statistician and strategist. He set out to defend Reagan from his critics, but after crunching the numbers, a different picture emerged. In his book, The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), Philips revealed some alarming statistics. When Reagan took office, the U.S. was the world’s largest creditor nation. When he left office, the U.S. was the world’s greatest debtor nation importing billions more each year than it exported. Wages stagnated as Reagan waged war on the unions. Mothers were forced to abandon their children and enter the workforce because a father no longer earned enough to provide for a family by himself. Non-union service jobs had replaced well-paying manufacturing jobs leaving families clamoring to earn enough to survive.
As in the 1920s, supply-side economics failed to trickle down, log-jamming the wealth at the top and starving the demand-side of the economy. Deregulated, unaccountable businesses proved that what they do best is plunder the economy. In 1987, the stock market took a record dive. Deregulated Savings and Loans went into receivership by the dozens and had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Dot-Com information technology businesses collapsed because of corrupt, unmonitored business practices. Then several of the big accounting firms folded as unregulated businesses resembled casinos more than responsible enterprises serving as stewards of a nation’s economy.
Reagan cut taxes for prosperous citizens, but raised them on lower income working people. For instance, he raised Social Security contributions over 50% and used that surplus to disguise the drain on the Treasury from tax cuts for the wealthy.
The Savings and Loan collapses and other business failures were the first tremors of a pending economic earthquake. The earthquake was postponed recklessly and irresponsibly by borrowing massive amounts of money from future generations.
By the time George W. Bush left office in 2009, the national debt was $12 trillion, and interest on the Reagan-Bush debt became the third biggest expense in the Federal budget. Since 1981, Reagan presided over five record deficits; G. H. W. Bush, two; George W. Bush, four. Bill Clinton had zero record deficits in eight years. Every Republican budget since 1981 was a deficit. Fifty five percent were record deficits.
In foreign policy, Reagan also had a dismal record. He helped fund and train a contingent of about 3,000 Arabs who went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight with their Muslim brothers against Soviet invaders. Those Arabs were led by Osama bin Laden. When the U.S. established military bases in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War, bin Laden saw the act as aggression similar to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He issued several warnings for the U.S. to withdraw, which were ignored by two presidents. Bin Laden then turned to force, bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa, the Navy ship USS Cole and finally, the World Trade Center.
Reagan was obsessed with the Central American nation of Nicaragua which had the audacity to electharoldtagg@comcast.net Communists to lead it. He was determined to evict Communism from the American continents and used every means available to reach his objective. He funded “Contras” to overthrow the government. He mined Nicaragua’s harbors which got the U.S. convicted by the World Court for terrorist activities. When Congress finally cut off funding for the hostilities, Reagan turned to drug-running and arms deals with Iran, a nation on the State Department’s terrorist list, to get the funding. These acts of subversion, treason, money laundering and drug running became know as the Iran-Contra scandal.
The book Conservatives without Conscience (2006), authored by Nixon White House attorney John Dean in collaboration with Barry Goldwater, compiled several studies done after World War II by social psychologists. The madness of the war indicated existing theories of human behavior and psychology were inadequate. One conclusion was that 25% of conservatives would never comprehend the destructive, illegal and atrocious behavior of their idols and heroes no matter what evidence was uncovered. Reagan will have devoted followers for at least two more generations.
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