Five Myths about Ronald Reagan

[Landslide Lyndon]

Excellent piece. Should be essential reading for every Republican,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020403104.html

...

2. Reagan was a tax-cutter.

Certainly, Reagan's boldest move as president was his 1981 tax cut, a sweeping measure that slashed the marginal rate on the wealthiest Americans from 70 percent to 50 percent. The legislation also included smaller cuts in lower tax brackets, as well as big breaks for corporations and the oil industry. But the following year, as the economy was mired in recession and the federal deficit was spiraling out of control, even groups such as the Business Roundtable lobbied Reagan to raise taxes. And he did: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was, at the time, the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history.

Ultimately, Reagan signed measures that increased federal taxes every year of his two-term presidency except the first and the last. These included a higher gasoline levy, a 1986 tax reform deal that included the largest corporate tax increase in American history, and a substantial raise in payroll taxes in 1983 as part of a deal to keep Social Security solvent. While wealthy Americans benefitted from Reagan's tax policies, blue-collar Americans paid a higher percentage of their income in taxes when Reagan left office than when he came in.

3. Reagan was a hawk.

Long before he was elected president, Reagan predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse because of communism's inherent corruption and inefficiency. His forecast proved accurate, but it is not clear that his military buildup moved the process forward. Though Reagan expanded the U.S. military and launched new weapons programs, his real contributions to the end of the Cold War were his willingness to negotiate arms reductions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his encouragement of Gorbachev as a domestic reformer. Indeed, a USA Today poll taken four days after the fall of the Berlin Wall found that 43 percent of Americans credited Gorbachev, while only 14 percent cited Reagan.

With the exception of the 1986 bombing of Libya, Reagan also disappointed hawkish aides with his unwillingness to retaliate militarily for terrorism in the Middle East. According to biographer Lou Cannon, the president called the death of innocent civilians in anti-terror operations "terrorism itself."

In 1987, Reagan aide Paul Bremer, later George W. Bush's point man in Baghdad, even argued that terrorism suspects should be tried in civilian courts. "A major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are - criminals - and to use democracy's most potent tool, the rule of law, against them," Bremer said. In 1988, Reagan signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which stated that torture could be used under "no exceptional circumstances, whatsoever."

4. Reagan shrank the federal government.

Reagan famously declared at his 1981 inauguration that "in the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." This rhetorical flourish didn't stop the 40th president from increasing the federal government's size by every possible measure during his eight years in office.

Federal spending grew by an average of 2.5 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, while Reagan was president. The national debt exploded, increasing from about $700 billion to nearly $3 trillion. Many experts believe that Reagan's massive deficits not only worsened the recession of the early 1990s but doomed his successor, George H.W. Bush, to a one-term presidency by forcing him to abandon his "no new taxes" pledge.

The number of federal employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million under Reagan, in large part because of his buildup at the Pentagon. (It took the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton to trim the employee rolls back to 2.7 million.) Reagan also abandoned a campaign pledge to get rid of two Cabinet agencies - Energy and Education - and added a new one, Veterans Affairs.

...

[Iosif]

Reagan legacy will always be of a ballooning deficit and selling weapons to terrorists.

[courts]

Reagan legacy will always be of a ballooning deficit and selling weapons to terrorists.

And putting millions more people in prison for their addictions and weekend habits, don't forget that.

[Mexino Vote]

The Democratic Party has OCD for Reagan I swear. You hate him more then I adore him. And says a considerable amount about the dems considering I dressed up as Reagan for halloween last year...

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

^^Hey, blame Nixon for that.

[Landslide Lyndon]

... considering I dressed up as Reagan for halloween last year...

You have my sympathy.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The Democratic Party has OCD for Reagan I swear. You hate him more then I adore him. And says a considerable amount about the dems considering I dressed up as Reagan for halloween last year...

     I dressed up as Reagan for Halloween several years ago & I didn't even really care about the guy. With that said, I do think that the Democrats' obssession with Reagan has everything to do with the Republicans' obssession with Reagan.

[Mexino Vote]

The Democratic Party has OCD for Reagan I swear. You hate him more then I adore him. And says a considerable amount about the dems considering I dressed up as Reagan for halloween last year...

     I dressed up as Reagan for Halloween several years ago & I didn't even really care about the guy. With that said, I do think that the Democrats' obssession with Reagan has everything to do with the Republicans' obssession with Reagan.

I guess that's true. Kinda how the GOP has a crazed obssession with FDR because the Dems do.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Democrats worship FDR like Republicans worship Reagan. Here are some TRUTHS about FDR.

1. The New Deal prolonged the great depresion.
2. FDR, had he lived, would of supported invading Japan instead of using the Atom Bomb.
3. FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court in his favor.
4. FDR expanded the Federal government to record levels.

[Verily]

Democrats worship FDR like Republicans worship Reagan. Here are some TRUTHS about FDR.

1. The New Deal prolonged the great depresion. At best an opinion.
2. FDR, had he lived, would of supported invading Japan instead of using the Atom Bomb. Not clear why this is a strike against him necessarily.
3. FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court in his favor. Everyone seems to know this.
4. FDR expanded the Federal government to record levels. Not at all a bad thing. And not even close to the record of administrations thereafter.

Also, Democrats don't talk about FDR nearly as much as Republicans talk about Reagan. Probably in part because few people alive today remember FDR, but whatever.

[DrScholl]

The biggest myth about Reagan is that he was a great President.

[King]

Democrats worship FDR like Republicans worship Reagan. Here are some TRUTHS about FDR.

1. The New Deal prolonged the great depresion.
2. FDR, had he lived, would of supported invading Japan instead of using the Atom Bomb.
3. FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court in his favor.
4. FDR expanded the Federal government to record levels.

3 and 4 are truths.  #3 is true of every President it seems, FDR just got impatient waiting for the justices to die.  #4, I don't think any person who likes FDR would even consider that a fault.

1 and 2 are debatable. You can find just as much evidence for and against it.  2, we'll never really know.  Saying something "prolonged the great depression" isn't as stone cold fact as saying "Reagan signed The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982."

[Lief 🗽]

Reagan would be tea-bagged if he were running in a Republican primary today.

[King]

Reagan would be tea-bagged if he were running in a Republican primary today.

This is true.  So would Bush Sr.  It's funny really.

Reagan and Bush raising taxes in their 12 year tenure is not proof that they were somehow disingenuous.  It's proof that they actually were fiscally responsible.  They tried to "cut the fat" but also realized that a healthy body needs fat.  Their ultimate goal was a balanced budget, and policies enacted during the (real) Bush Administration would eventually lead to that in the 1990s.

It wasn't until those 1990s that it started to go south for "fiscal conservatism" when the mouth breathing halfwits who supported Reagan and Bush came up with their own concept of Starving the Beast--an idea I would say is backed up with just as much pseudoscience as intelligent design, but that would be an insult to the logic of intelligent design.  Even today, there is still no evidence that "starving the beast" will ever result in a fiscally responsible federal, state, or local government.  In fact, if the beast weren't starved, and the American people actually had to pay taxes for the entire budget every year you'd probably see more support for fiscal conservatism not less.

Instead, we have a new beast starved world where people get a big budget with low taxes.  It created immunity to fiscal responsibility.  The National Debt Clock is cute, but the Personal Debt Clock would be far more powerful.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Your screen name wants me to think how the real Libby would respond to this article.

[seanobr]

While I respect the intent of the article, I think it's going to find that the popular conception of Reagan's tenure is so irreconcilable with reality, unequivocally manipulated to embody whatever Republican cause of the day is relevant, that only the detachment of time will allow us to undertake a much needed reassessment of his legacy.  Placing a monument to him in every state may embolden his reputation now, but it's going to appear incredibly premature if history is not particularly flattering to his accomplishments and the ethos that has been woven around them.  It's also an unfortunate indicator of how uncompromising American political discourse is today that the Washington Post's assessment will only be seen as credible if someone from my side of the spectrum is willing to embrace it, and while I completely concur, I'm certainly not going to have that impact.  The Democratic Party has Kennedy.  We have Reagan.  I don't think highly of either, so I'd be quite content if we could dispense with both of them.

[Napoleon]

Didn't Reagan sign one of the most liberal abortion laws ever as Governor of California?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Democrats worship FDR like Republicans worship Reagan. Here are some TRUTHS about FDR.

1. The New Deal prolonged the great depresion. At best an opinion.
2. FDR, had he lived, would of supported invading Japan instead of using the Atom Bomb. Not clear why this is a strike against him necessarily.
3. FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court in his favor. Everyone seems to know this.
4. FDR expanded the Federal government to record levels. Not at all a bad thing. And not even close to the record of administrations thereafter.

Also, Democrats don't talk about FDR nearly as much as Republicans talk about Reagan. Probably in part because few people alive today remember FDR, but whatever.

     Invading Japan would have likely led to greater casualties than the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki did. Impossible to say for sure, though.

[The Dowager Mod]

The biggest myth about Reagan is that he was a great President.

^^^

[seanobr]

As for my interest, foreign policy, much is made of Ronald Reagan's mantra of peace through strength, yet it was absent when it was most required and incendiary when restraint would have been more prudent.  After dramatically vowing that we would not be intimidated, he and the multi-national force withdrew from Lebanon.  He repeatedly tangled with Libya, but did not have the fortitude to authorize a legitimate assassination attempt on Gaddafi irrespective of the Executive Order prohibition, so he haphazardly tried to accomplish it with Operation El Dorado Canyon.  That brilliant show of pyrotechnics resulted in the death of Gaddafi's daughter, engendered great scorn, and Gaddafi, as you could expect, retaliated by orchestrating the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103.  Whatever the morality of assassination, it is a viable tool of statecraft, and it should have been done properly rather than so crudely.

His most formidable military action was in Grenada, which was met with derision from the international community, although I would contend it was in our sphere of influence and the intervention, while a violation of international law, was of limited magnitude.  The arming of the Mujahideen -- his seminal accomplishment -- actually began under the guidance of Zbigniew Brzezinski, and while Reagan adroitly exploited it, there was no consideration of what the lasting impact of that action might be or how we could contain it.  One controversial debate took place over the United Kingdom's action against Argentina; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick wanted to withhold our support as a way of trying to insulate Galtieri and protect the junta.  

Despite the fact that Team B's appraisal was completely without merit, there was a consensus during the Carter administration that the Soviet Union had a perceived military advantage and some type of expansion on our part was necessary to re-establish a balance.  Reagan, however, took it to an extreme: the neoconservative belief that the Soviet Union was a malevolent entity that needed to be eradicated helped inspire his indulgent and bellicose rhetoric, heightening the tension that had begun with the fraying of detente, evidenced by the near absence of Soviet Jewish emigration to the West during his first term.  Giving off the impression that we were intending to confront the Soviet Union once and for all, as Operation Able Archer indicated to an already unnerved and beleaguered Moscow, probably enhanced the aggressive strain within the Communist establishment and prevented the country from implementing the social and economic reform it required far longer than had we not succumbed to such infantile posturing.  Indeed, had a more orthodox politician come to power -- and not Gorbachev, whose overture tempered the neoconservative influence and led to George Shultz's nursemaiding of Reagan, the ending of the Cold War might not have been so sanguine.  

Presenting detente as appeasement, as so many of Reagan's supporters were fond of, when it bled superpower animosity off into the Third World and created an atmosphere of acceptance, is nonsense; and had it been seen through and not actively thwarted by that same neoconservative coterie, the Soviet Union might have met its natural end much sooner.

[Verily]

Democrats worship FDR like Republicans worship Reagan. Here are some TRUTHS about FDR.

1. The New Deal prolonged the great depresion. At best an opinion.
2. FDR, had he lived, would of supported invading Japan instead of using the Atom Bomb. Not clear why this is a strike against him necessarily.
3. FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court in his favor. Everyone seems to know this.
4. FDR expanded the Federal government to record levels. Not at all a bad thing. And not even close to the record of administrations thereafter.

Also, Democrats don't talk about FDR nearly as much as Republicans talk about Reagan. Probably in part because few people alive today remember FDR, but whatever.

     Invading Japan would have likely led to greater casualties than the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki did. Impossible to say for sure, though.

Which was my point. It might have been worse, but it might also have been better. Certainly it wasn't unequivocally a bad position to take.

[bgwah]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juxm4P4fnq8

[J. J.]

Excellent piece. Should be essential reading for every Republican,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020403104.html

...

2. Reagan was a tax-cutter.

The tax increase was largely in 1985-6.  In 1982, the tax cuts were still going in.


4. Reagan shrank the federal government.

[/quote]

Well, no; he ignored deficits and increased the military.  As to the 1990-92 recession, Reagan took office in the midst of a far worse recession and the landing was relatively soft.

[Landslide Lyndon]

[CultureKing]

As for my interest, foreign policy, much is made of Ronald Reagan's mantra of peace through strength, yet it was absent when it was most required and incendiary when restraint would have been more prudent.  After dramatically vowing that we would not be intimidated, he and the multi-national force withdrew from Lebanon.  He repeatedly tangled with Libya, but did not have the fortitude to authorize a legitimate assassination attempt on Gaddafi irrespective of the Executive Order prohibition, so he haphazardly tried to accomplish it with Operation El Dorado Canyon.  That brilliant show of pyrotechnics resulted in the death of Gaddafi's daughter, engendered great scorn, and Gaddafi, as you could expect, retaliated by orchestrating the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103.  Whatever the morality of assassination, it is a viable tool of statecraft, and it should have been done properly rather than so crudely.

His most formidable military action was in Grenada, which was met with derision from the international community, although I would contend it was in our sphere of influence and the intervention, while a violation of international law, was of limited magnitude.  The arming of the Mujahideen -- his seminal accomplishment -- actually began under the guidance of Zbigniew Brzezinski, and while Reagan adroitly exploited it, there was no consideration of what the lasting impact of that action might be or how we could contain it.  One controversial debate took place over the United Kingdom's action against Argentina; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick wanted to withhold our support as a way of trying to insulate Galtieri and protect the junta.  

Despite the fact that Team B's appraisal was completely without merit, there was a consensus during the Carter administration that the Soviet Union had a perceived military advantage and some type of expansion on our part was necessary to re-establish a balance.  Reagan, however, took it to an extreme: the neoconservative belief that the Soviet Union was a malevolent entity that needed to be eradicated helped inspire his indulgent and bellicose rhetoric, heightening the tension that had begun with the fraying of detente, evidenced by the near absence of Soviet Jewish emigration to the West during his first term.  Giving off the impression that we were intending to confront the Soviet Union once and for all, as Operation Able Archer indicated to an already unnerved and beleaguered Moscow, probably enhanced the aggressive strain within the Communist establishment and prevented the country from implementing the social and economic reform it required far longer than had we not succumbed to such infantile posturing.  Indeed, had a more orthodox politician come to power -- and not Gorbachev, whose overture tempered the neoconservative influence and led to George Shultz's nursemaiding of Reagan, the ending of the Cold War might not have been so sanguine.  

Presenting detente as appeasement, as so many of Reagan's supporters were fond of, when it bled superpower animosity off into the Third World and created an atmosphere of acceptance, is nonsense; and had it been seen through and not actively thwarted by that same neoconservative coterie, the Soviet Union might have met its natural end much sooner.

IR is my passion as well and I definitely subscribe to this way of thinking when it comes to the ending of the cold war. I think it is important to add that while Reagan wasn't a war hawk in directly involving US troops he definitely spurred all sorts of wars throughout the world. Just look at the horrendous US involvement in Latin America during the 1980's that if anything simply served to create a huge amount of animosity towards the US and radicalized populations. All in the name of supporting oligarchs who then took their billions of US dollars to kill civilians. A bit ironic now considering that many Latin American leaders come from the former rebel groups that Reagan fought so hard against (and it turns out most of them aren't crazy!).