Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General "Reagan Principles"

Can someone name some programs started under the "Reagan Principles" which have bettered this nation?

I don't believe FDR fit within the 28 year time frame I noted Senator.

You know, every time I see the title to this thread I laugh out loud. Reagan and principles? Give me a break. Reagan was the biggest fake and liar on the planet in his day. The problem was, he lost track of reality and started believing his press. What is even more shocking is that people still believe.

What was great about Pres. Reagan was that he didn't start any programs! We have too damn many government programs as it is. What needs to be done is to start getting rid of government programs not adding more of them! Reagan's desire to get rid of government programs was the principle of his that defines what is conservatism.

I ceased living in a fantasy land when I was about 10. Just because Ronald Reagan lived there doesn't mean it applied to the rest of us, we had to live in the real world where things got immeasurably worse because of his incompetent leadership. He was mendacious, a fool, and a criminal. He was not "great" except in the sense of being a great fraud. No sense in perpetuating that by giving him credence and lauding his mismanagement.

Right, like the missile defense shield

What a biased and close minded response. In essence what you are saying NW, is I don't like Pres. Reagan because of what I know about him and have no interest in finding out if I am wrong. Pope John Paul II didn't think Reagan was a fool. Margaret Thathcer didn't think Reagan was a fool. Lech Walsea didn't think Reagan was a fool. Mikhail Gorbachev didn't think Reagan was a fool. Do you know more about Reagan than they did, NW?

His death has unleashed a torrent of commentary on the significance of this revolution, and so it is important to set the record straight. His economic policies were mostly a failure. Partly this was because he had promised something arithmetically impossible: to increase military spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget. He kept the first two promises, delivering the largest peacetime military build-up in American history, and cutting taxes massively, mostly for upper-income households.

But budget deficits soared to record heights. The national debt doubled, as a percentage of the economy, before Mr. Reagan's successors were able to bring it under control. This "military Keynesianism" did pull the economy out of the 1982 recession, but the 1980s still chalked up the slowest growth of any decade in the post-World War II era. And income was redistributed to the wealthy as never before: during the 1980s, most of the country's income gains went to the top 1 or 2 percent of households.

Mr. Reagan also helped redistribute American income and wealth with a bold assault on American labor. In 1981 he summarily fired 12,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike for better working conditions. This ushered in a new and dark era of labor relations, with employers now free to "permanently replace" striking workers. The median real wage failed to grow during the decade of the 1980s.

The Reagan revolution caused even more economic damage internationally, for example by changing policy at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Thus began the era of "structural adjustment" -- a set of economic policies that has become so discredited worldwide that the IMF and World Bank no longer use the term. The 1980s became "the lost decade" for Latin America, the region most affected by Washington's foreign economic policy. Income per person actually shrank for the decade, a rare historical event, and the region has yet to come close to its pre-1980s growth rates.

His Administration cuddled up with the fascistic and anti-Semitic junta of Argentina and backed militaries in El Salvador and Guatemala that massacred civilians. It moved to normalize relations with Augusto Pinochet, the tyrant of Chile. Reagan sent George Bush the First to the Philippines, where the Vice President toasted dictator Ferdinand Marcos for fostering "democracy." Pursuing a quasi-secret war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration violated international law and circumvented Congress to support contra rebels engaged in human rights abuses and, according to the CIA's own Inspector General, worked with suspected drug traffickers. Reagan covertly sent arms to the mullahs of Iran and courted Saddam Hussein, even after his use of chemical weapons.

the total federal tax burden increased during the Reagan years, and most Americans paid more in taxes after Reagan than before. The "Reagan Recovery" was unremarkable. It looks great only contrasted against the dismal Reagan Recession...GOP Senators, notably including Bob Dole, led the way on tax hikes. The economy enjoyed its recovery only after total tax increases larger than the total tax cuts were implemented. Most importantly, average annual GDP growth during the Reagan 80s was lower than during the Clinton 90s or the JFK-LBJ 60s!